sec >N I :QPY 




LIBRARY OF C ONGRESS 

Chap..P.Hipffi^t'No 

Shells. Hi Z5 ' 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



MY YOUNG MAN 



BY / 

REV. LOUIS ALBERT BANKS, D.D. 

AUTHOR OF "THE CHRISTIAN GENTLEMAN," "IMMORTAL SONGS 

OF CAMP AND FIELD," "HERO TALES FROM 

SACRED STORY," ETC., ETC. 



B Series ot Booreeses to J^oung dfcen 

DELIVERED IN THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION HALL 
CLEVELAND, OHIO 



FUNK & W AGNAILS COMPANY 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 
1899 



CONTENTS- 



PAGE 

I. My Young Man as a Son 7 

II. My Young Man as a Brother .... 18 

III. My Young Man in Society 31 

IV. My Young Man as a Lover 44 

V. My Young Man as a Husband .... 54 

VI. My Young Man as a Church Member . 66 

VII. My Young Man as a Neighbor . , . . 76 

VIII. My Young Man and His Money ... 88 

IX. My Young Man as a Citizen 103 

X. My Young Man as Himself 114 



MY YOUNG MAN 



MY YOUNG MAN AS A SON 

Home is the sweetest word in any language. 
Next to it in tenderness and love is the word 
Mother, while overshadowing them both in 
splendid majesty is the title of Father. These 
three words are three strokes of the brush by 
which the artist is able to place on the canvas a 
picture that arouses" the heart of every true 
young man. John Howard Payne, the wan- 
derer, has become the poet of humanity, because 
he voiced the universal conception of the human 
heart in his " Home, Sweet Home " : 

" 'Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, 
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home! 
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there, 



8 . MY YOUNG MAN 

Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with 
elsewhere. 

Home! home! sweet, sweet home! 
There's no place like home! 
There's no place like home! 



An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain: 
Oh! give me my lowly thatched cottage again! 
The birds, singing gaily, that came at my call, 
Give me them, with the peace of mind dearer than 
all. 

Home! home! sweet, sweet home! 
There's no place like home! 
There's no place like home!" 



Happy is the young man who appreciates his 
sacred obligations while he is yet a member of 
the home circle, and is able by words and deeds 
to voice his appreciation to those who are most 
interested in him. 

It would be a good thing if every young man 
could see himself, sometimes, through his father's 
eyes, and could realize the tender pride which in 
every true father's heart is connected with his 
son. For every noble father has a longing that 
his son shall be a larger, and in every way better, 
edition of himself. The father looks back over 



AS A SON 9 

his own mistakes and blunders, and longs and 
prays that his son may somehow escape these 
pitfalls, and win victories on battlefields where 
he himself has been defeated. 

Nothing is more splendid than to see a young 
man, strong and vigorous and successful, who 
remembers with a manly thanksgiving the father 
who watched about his years of weakness, and 
whose arms protected his youth. I have a friend 
who has been very successful in life, and to 
whom have come high honors, but he never 
seems so grand to me as when I see him with his 
father. The father is old and bent and poor, 
and the son is strong and handsome as a Greek 
god; but the tenderness, the spirit of comrade- 
ship, the delicate deference and reverence by 
which he manages to save his father from all 
sense of lack or need, and to draw him into joy- 
ous fellowship with himself in his own strong and 
^successful life, is something which makes the 
appreciative onlooker think better of mankind. 

There is a beautiful illustration of this noble 
treatment of a father by his son in the story of 
Joseph. Joseph was a son of a shepherd, and 
his father and brothers were all rude sheep herd- 
ers and cattle men, and were not accustomed to 
the ways of the city, and certainly not to the 



10 MY YOUNG MAN 

fashions and etiquette of a court like that of 
Pharaoh, the proud ruler of Egypt. Joseph had 
been separated from his father for twenty years, 
and in the meantime had risen to great power 
and wealth. He was the acting governor of the 
greatest nation in the world. He had the ear 
and the heart of the monarch, and was flattered 
and respected by everybody. But there was 
something so truly genuine and noble about 
Joseph that it saved him from being spoiled. 
How sweet is the picture given in the story — of 
the old shepherd coming down into Egypt, and 
Joseph going out to meet him. The record says: 
1 ' And Joseph made ready his chariot, and went 
up to meet Israel his father, to Goshen, and pre- 
sented himself unto him; and he fell on his "neck, 
and wept on his neck a good while. And Israel 
said unto Joseph, Now let me die, since I have 
seen thy face, because thou art yet alive. And 
Joseph said unto his brethren, and unto his 
father's house, I will go up, and shew Pharaoh, 
and say unto him, my brethren, and my father's 
house, which were in the land of Canaan, are 
come unto me; and the men are shepherds, for 
their trade hath been to feed cattle; and they 
have brought their flocks, and their herds, and 
all that they have. ' ' 



AS A SON II 

Surely, nothing could be finer than that ! He 
did not presume on his dignity and remain on his 
lofty judgment seat, as the acting ruler of the 
nation, and wait for his old father to come in to 
see him and be awed by his great state. Instead 
of that he goes out to meet him as any decent, 
manly young man would go to the station in 
Cleveland to meet his father. He had a great 
deal of business on hand, but he could not miss 
the happiness of going out to meet his old father 
before he reached the city. As Dr. Joseph 
Parker says, it does not matter how pressing our 
duties are, we can add a little pathos to them if 
we like; whatever we be in life, we can add a 
little sentiment to our life. And what is life 
without sentiment ? What are the flowers with- 
out a little occasional sprinkling of dew ? It 
may be a great thing to sit on a high stool and 
wait till the old man comes upstairs. But it is 
an infinitely grander thing, a far more splendid 
and beautiful thing, to get off the stool and drive 
a few miles out into the country and meet him 
on the road. Home will be a much happier 
home — I don't care whether it is a mansion or a 
tenement — if you have a little sentiment, a little 
tenderness and gracious feeling. These are the 
things that sweeten the bitter drafts of life. 



12 MY YOUNG MAN" 

I have introduced the father first because of 
that natural timidity and unwisdom which makes 
a man put off the harder task until the last. I 
am always abashed and at a loss when I under- 
take to speak to a young man about his mother. 
I am not embarrassed for lack of something to 
say, but because of the wealth of resources. In 
the very nature of things, no one else can ever 
stand to a young man in a relation at once so 
tender and so unselfish. Every man born and 
reared in a wholesome home atmosphere knows 
that there is one bosom that will be faithful to 
him through time and eternity. Many of your 
hearts respond to Kipling's unique but vital 
tribute to motherhood : — 



If I were hung on the highest hill, 

I know whose love wouW follow me still, 

mother o' mine ! D mother o' mine ! 

1 If I were drowned in the deepest sea, 

1 know whose tears would come down to me, 

mother o' mine ! O mother o' mine ! 

If I were damned of body and soul, 

1 know whose prayers would make me whole, 
O mother o' mine ! O mother o' mine !" 



AS A SON 13 

No young man can ever have a better con- 
fidant and friend than a true mother, and no 
recommendation is so conclusive as the fact that 
he has been loyal and faithful to her. I think 
nothing was said among the universal tributes of 
praise and admiration to Lieutenant Hobson over 
the sinking of the Merrimac which was so fine as 
his mother's letter about him. Writing to a 
friend in New York city she said: "Your 
letter of congratulation reached me a few days 
ago. I fully appreciate and agree with you in 
your enthusiastic tribute to my boy's heroism. 
In accomplishing his daring achievement, I 
realize he was guided and protected by our kind 
Heavenly Father. The appreciation of the 
country, his State, and native town, is most grati- 
fying to us all. It is but natural that my mother- 
pride should be pleased at the recognition of my 
boy by the nation and its rulers. Such recog- 
nition is very happy, but it has told us nothing 
new of his grand worth. A nobler son no mother 
ever had. He has been a mighty tower of 
strength to me for years. Never forgetting the 
many demands of a large household, it has always 
been his pleasure to share his salary with us. In 
every way he has been a help and a comfort. 
The three years he was studying abroad there 



14 



MY YOUNG MAN 



never failed to come from him the most loving 
letters, and his resources were ever at our com- 
mand. The gentlest, noblest nature, with every 
attraction of person and character, he claims the 
admiration of every one who knows him. To us, 
nearest and dearest to him, it took no Santiago to 
proclaim him a hero ; he has been to us so long 
the truest hero, a noble son and idolized brother. 
The plaudits of the world are his; and while 
history will record the daring deed of his heroism, 
the gentler, sweeter, nobler beauty of his nature 
can be known only to those to whom he is ' first 
best.' " Who, with the spirit of a man in him, 
would not prize the honest tribute of a mother 
like that far beyond all the applause of news- 
papers or governments, and esteem it a reward 
more splendid than any promotion that could 
come to him ? 

Many of the noblest men that have ever lived 
have owed their triumphant lives to their adher- 
ence to the counsels of a mother unknown to 
fame. While whisky-drinking was the fashion 
all about him, Abraham Lincoln never forgot his 
dead mother's request — to close his lips against 
intoxicants. Once when he was a member of 
Congress, a friend criticized him for his seeming 
rudeness in declining to test the rare wines pro- 



AS A SOJST 



15 



vided by their host, urging as reason for the 
reproof, ■ ' There is certainly no danger of a man 
of your years and habits becoming addicted to its 
use." 

" I meant no disrespect, John," answered Mr. 
Lincoln, "but I promised my precious mother 
only a few days before she died that I would 
never use anything intoxicating as a beverage, 
and I consider the promise as binding to-day as 
it was the day I gave it." 

' ' There is a great difference between a child 
surrounded by a rough class of drinkers, and a 
man in a home of refinement," insisted the 
friend. 

" But a promise is a promise forever, John, and 
when made to a mother it is doubly binding, ' ' 
replied Mr. Lincoln. 

If all the young men who hear me will hold 
as sacredly to promises made to their mothers, 
something of Lincoln's rugged genuineness of 
character will be developed in their lives. 

One of New York's greatest merchants came 
to that city as a country boy seeking work. He 
went from one place to another, meeting only 
discouragement. Finally, footsore and disheart- 
ened, he stood in another counting-room, only to 
be told rather gruffly that he was not wanted. 



l6 MY YOUNG MAN 

' ' But, ' ' he said, ' ' I have the best of refer- 
ences," and as he began turning ovef his valise 
to find a letter of recommendation, a book rolled 
out on the floor. 

' ' What book is that ? ' ' sharply asked the 
merchant. 

" It is the Bible, ' ' was the answer returned. 

1 ' And what are you going to do with that 
book in New York ? ' ' 

The clear-eyed young man looked frankly into 
the face of the merchant and said : "I promised 
my mother I would read it every day, and I shall 
always do so. ' ' 

The merchant, who had refused him, changed 
his mind, and gave him a place on that recom- 
mendation; and he became one of the great mer- 
chant princes of New York. 

No recommendation can be better than love 
for mother, coupled with a devotion to mother's 
Bible. That old poem written by George P. 
Morris with his mother's Bible before him never 
loses its power to touch the heart's most sacred 
fountain: — 

" This book is all that's left me now, 
Tears will unbidden start ; 
With faltering lips and throbbing brow 
1 press it to my heart. 



AS A SON" 

For many generations past 

Here is our family tree; 
My mother's hands this Bible clasped, 

She, dying, gave it me. 

" Ah, well do I remember those 

Whose names these records bear, 
Who round the hearthstone used to close 

After the evening prayer, 
And speak of what these pages said 

In tones my heart would thrill; 
Tho they are with the silent dead, 

Here they are living still. 



17 



Thou truest friend man ever had, 

Thy constancy I've tried ; 
When all were false I found thee true, 

My counselor and guide. 
The mines of earth no treasures give 

That could this volume buy; 
In teaching me the way to live, 

It taught me how to die." 



T 8 MY YOUNG MAN 



n 

MY YOUNG MAX AS A BROTHER 

If we were to judge from the illustrations 
given us in Bible history, we would certainly be 
forced to the conclusion that it is not an easy 
thing to be a good brother. It is much easier to 
find ideal fathers and mothers, whose majesty 
and graciousness and self-sacrificing love inspire 
our admiration, than it is to find a brother whose 
career gives us pleasure to contemplate. 

The first young man in the world slew his own 
brother, and for a reason which suggests a temp- 
tation that must often be present in many fami- 
lies: his brother's life came into competition and 
comparison with his own. This aroused Cain's 
jealousy and envy, and ended in bitterness of 
thought, and finally a murderous deed. 

In the story of Jacob and Esau you have again 
sorrow and trouble coming from the competition 
of two young lives for the same family inherit- 
ance. Jacob cheats his brother, and is, through 
his brother's wrath, driven into a long exile, and 
the family is broken up in shame and unhappi- 
ness. 



AS A BROTHER 



19 



Joseph's brothers, through this same envy, 
aroused by the promise of a brilliant personality 
that threatened to eclipse the rest of the family, 
were led to sell him away into bondage. Joseph 
himself redeems the name of brother by his gen- 
erosity and kindness twenty years later, when his 
brethren are in his power, and he, having a 
chance to wreak vengeance on them, not only 
refuses to do so, but graciously forgives them 
and bestows on them the generous kindness of a 
noble brotherhood. 

The story of Moses in relation to his brother 
Aaron and his elder sister Miriam, is, on the 
whole, both an interesting and a helpful picture 
of brotherhood. Our first picture of Miriam as a 
little girl watching over Moses as a babe in the 
ark of bulrushes by the side of the Nile, and 
contriving, with a bright girl's ingenuity coupled 
with a sister's love, to secure the employment of 
their own mother as nurse for her brother, is full 
of charm. Moses seems to have been a true 
brother in return. 

In these distinguished cases we have illustra- 
tions enough to show that it is no small commen- 
dation of a man when you say that he is a good 
brother. The temptations to envy and jealousy 
in this relation are great, and the requirement is 



20 MY YOUNG MAN 

for large sympathy and self-denying love. But a 
true brotherhood, if difficult, is one of the purest 
and noblest relations in the world. 

I will speak of two or three characteristics 
which are necessary to adorn and beautify a 
brother. The first is courtesy. A famous French 
essayist declares that courtesy is ( ' the flower of 
life." There is no more appropriate place for 
the sweet courtesies of life than in the home, 
between parents and children, brothers and sis- 
ters. Many people are inclined to put the ques- 
tion of courtesy and politeness aside with a shrug 
of the shoulders, as if we had so many more 
important things on our hands that we have no 
time or thought to spend upon the little things. 
But it has been well said that character making 
is in some respects like money making — if you 
take care of the cents, the dollars will look after 
themselves. So, if you will take care of the 
minor moralities, the major moralities will, if not 
look after themselves, flourish all the more vigor- 
ously because of the care devoted to their smaller 
brethren. I think if you will study the life of 
Jesus Christ, you can not help but notice how 
constantly He carried the blossom and fragrance 
of this flower of kindly courtesy into His conver- 
sation and deeds. His keenest critic can not 



AS A BROTHER 21 

point out one flaw in the gentle courtesy of His 
life. So marked was this characteristic in the 
one perfect manly life that has been lived among 
us, that an old English poet called our Lord 
' ' the first true gentleman that ever breathed. ' ' 
If we are to act the part of true brotherhood in 
our family circle, we must have the kindly gra- 
cious spirit of Him of whom it was written, ' • A 
bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax 
shall he not quench." Tennyson wrote truly 
when he said: — 

" Manners are not idle, but the fruit 
Of noble nature, and of loyal mind." 

Oftentimes the love -which exists between 
brothers and sisters as children dies out as they 
grow older for the lack of the refreshing nourish- 
ment which can only come from genuinely cour- 
teous treatment. Courtesy can exist without love, 
as Dr. Robert Horton has said, but love without 
courtesy becomes quickly bedraggled and hag- 
gard. For the maintenance of love few motives 
would be more favorable than this, that home is 
a good practising ground for habitual courtesy, 
neglecting which we shall make a poor show cm 
field days. Pity that brotherly love should pinft 



22 MY YOUNG MAN 

for want of so small a thing! Surely it is good 
enough to merit some diligent cultivation in addi- 
tion to the negative protection of politeness. If 
brothers in relation to each other, or to their sis- 
ters, allow themselves to get out of the habit of 
courteous and loving ways, it is very hard to 
take it up again. It is an art that dies with dis- 
use, and once discontinued, it is taken up again 
with stiff and awkward fingers. In the torn gar- 
ment of the home life, hard hearts and unloving 
natures tear rent after rent until it is all in tat- 
ters; but love never lets the rents grow large; its 
busy needle patches them up, and by an act it 
must have learned in heaven, scatters the love- 
liest sprays of embroidery and silver work about 
the darn, so that what threatened destruction 
has proved to be a strength and beauty, and the 
garment has become a symbol of love's power, 
instead of the jagged rags which witnessed to 
love's defects. 

Helpfulness is a characteristic of the noble 
type of brother. A beautiful incident is related 
of the great naturalist, Louis Agassiz. It was 
when he was a 3 r oung man, living at home on 
the border of a lake in Switzerland. His father 
was on the other side of the lake. He had a 
little brother, and the two boys thought they 



AS A BROTHER 23 

would like to join their father. The lake was 
covered with ice, and they were to walk across. 
The mother stood at the window watching them — 
anxious, as mothers are — seeing them getting 
along very well, till at length they came to a 
crack in the ice, a foot or more wide. Her heart 
failed her. She thought: "That little fellow^ 
will try to step over; Louis w 7 ill get over well 
enough, but the little fellow will fall in." She 
could not call to them, they were too far away. 
What could she do? She watched them, and, 
as she watched, Louis got down on the ice, his ' 
feet on one side of the crack, his hands on the 
other, just like a bridge, and his little brother 
crept over him to the other side. Then Louis got 
up, and they w r ent on their way to their father. 

That little picture of a young man lying across 
the crack in the ice that his younger brother may 
climb over him to safety, is suggestive of what 
a brother in the family circle often has the privi- 
lege of doing for his brothers and sisters. And 
it is always a noble thing to do. I have in my 
mind at this moment a strong, splendid man, who 
lias come to high success and honor before the 
world, who did just that thing for a large family 
of brothers and sisters. Just as he was getting 
into his profession his father died, and left his 



24 MY YOUNG MAN 

mother, a noble, gracious woman, with a large 
family to care for. They were very poor, and if 
left to themselves, or to the mother' s strength or 
resources, none of them would have been able to 
secure a good education. But this noble young 
fellow deliberately put himself down over the 
crack between their helplessness and a college 
education. For fifteen } T ears he worked almost 
night and day, denying himself a hundred luxu- 
ries which otherwise he could easily have had. 
One after another he sent his brothers and sisters 
through college, until the entire family were 
splendidly educated and given a fair start in life. 
The result of his heroic self-sacrifice has surely 
justified him. Two of his brothers are noble 
preachers of the Gospel, one of them is a dis- 
tinguished artist, and all the family are cultivated 
and influential people, whose mark upon the 
world will ever be for good. He carried all this 
burden with a shining face, and many people 
who wondered why he was always so economical 
and saving, never knew that over his broad 
shoulders his helpless brothers and sisters were 
climbing into usefulness and fame. That is my 
idea of the noblest and holiest type of brother- 
hood. If any young man who hears me has an 
opportunity to be that kind of a brother, I am 



AS A BROTHER 



25 



sure he will never regret following so noble an 
example. 

■ I think there is often a great loss of human 
happiness in the failure to express the love and 
affection which brothers and sisters feel for each 
other. There is frequently a kind of stoicism 
which grows up in family life, and which is un- 
worthy of the gentleness and sympathy that 
should exist in Christian homes. 

There came into a Brooklyn hospital, about 
the close of the Spanish war, a young woman 
who was in great mental distress. She told the 
hospital authorities that she was looking for her 
brother, who was a sick soldier, and of whom all 
trace had been lost. The brother had gone to 
Santiago, had become sick there, and had been 
taken to Montauk Point. From there he had 
been sent to a hospital in New York or Brooklyn, 
but no one could tell where. The young woman 
and her mother had come from the far West in 
search of the soldier boy. They had spent 
several days at Camp Wikoff, and found finally 
that he had been sent to a hospital in Brooklyn. 
They had been searching for still other days in 
vain, and the mother had become so exhausted 
and unnerved that the daughter continued the 
work alone. When she came into the hospital 



2 6 MY YOUNG MAN 

she said that she feared her brother was too ill 
to give his name, or that he had been entered on 
the books under a wrong name. She scanned 
the death list closely, after a struggle with her 
courage, but did not find her brother's name. 
Then, under proper guidance, she started through 
the wards, peering into the face of every man. 
She went through them all, and in an effort to 
control her disappointment and overcome her 
complete despondency she stepped to a window 
overlooking a yard where a dozen convalescent 
soldiers were sitting, taking the air. 

" Perhaps he is among them," said her guide. 

The 3'oung woman shook her head and stood 
watching the soldiers, at the same time trying 
to keep back the tears. Suddenly she gave a 
scream. 

"There's Tom, now!" she cried. "How 
can I get to him ? Let me go to him at once ! ' ' 

There were no stairs in sight, and in her ex- 
citement she began to climb out of the window. 
She was seized and taken to a doorway, whence 
she dashed out to the group, calling her brother's 
name again and again. They were in each 
other's arms in a moment, and the soldiers joined 
in the te rs that were shed — all except one. 

After the young woman had taken her brother 



AS A BROTHER 27 

off, this one growled out: " I don't see why all 
you fellows had to cry because that girl found 
her brother. What did you want to blubber 
for?" 

"Haven't you got a mother or a sister?" 
asked one of the group. 

The man bit his lip and fairly shouted: ' ' Naw! ' ' 

The other soldiers turned their backs on him 
for the rest of the day. 

He felt it, however, and the next morning he 
said: "gay, fellows, of course I have a mother 
and a sister. I didn't mean anything. I didn't 
want to give way, that was all. It doesn't do a 
man any good. I was just trying to be a soldier, 
that's all, and I "— 

Then that man broke down and sobbed, and 
soldierly stoicism went to the winds. 

There is a good deal of that kind of stoicism 
which robs the lives of many brothers and sis- 
ters of a great deal of the joy and sweetness of 
our human living. It is a thousand times better 
to keep the heart fresh and sweet by the expres- 
sion of the kindly and loving feeling which is in 
our thoughts. 

Brothers, let us make much of the sweet fel- 
lowship of home life which God has given us. 
The time spent in writing letters, and in keeping 



28 MY YOUNG MAN 

alive the family bond of brotherhood, is time 
well invested. Tho we may not be able to see 
each other often, we shall be the nobler, and life 
will be the sweeter and richer, by keeping ever 
in mind the loving bond which unites us by ties 
of blood and fellowship with those who knelt at 
the same mother's knee with us. If we do this, 
Charles Sprague's oft-quoted song of "The 
Family Meeting ' ' will be realized by us, tho 
oceans and continents may separate us from one 
another. In our memory's hall they gather 
round us again. 



" We are all here, 

Father, mother, 

Sister, brother, 
All who hold each other dear. 
Each chair is filled; we're all at home! 
To-night let no cold stranger come. 
It is not often thus around 
Our old familiar hearth we're found. 
Bless, then, the meeting and the spot; 
For once be every care forgot; 
Let gentle peace assert her power, 
And kind affection rule the hour. 

We're all — all here. 

"We're not all here! 
Some are away— the dead ones dear, 



AS A BROTHER 

Who thronged with us this ancient hearth, 
And gave the hour to guileless mirth. 
Fate, with a stern, relentless hand, 
Looked in, and thinned our little band; 
Some like a night-flash passed away, 
And some sank lingering day by day; 
The quiet graveyard — some lie there — 
And cruel Ocean has his share. 
We're not all here. 



" We are all here! 
Even they — the dead — tho dead, so dear — 
Fond memory, to her duty true. 
Brings back their faded forms to view. 
How lifelike : through the mist of years, 
Each well-remembered face appears! 
We see them, as in times long past; 
From each to each kind looks are cast; 
We hear their words, their smiles behold; 
They're round us, as they were of old. 
We are all here. 



" We are all here, 

Father, mother, 

Sister, brother, 
You that I love with love so dear. 
This may not long of us be said; 
Soon must we join the gathered dead, 
And by the hearth we now sit round 
Some other circle will be found. 



29 



3Q 



MY YOUNG MAN 

Oh, then, that wisdom may we know 
Which yields a life of peace below! 
So, in the world to follow 'this, 
May each repeat in words of bliss, 
We're all — all here!" 



Itf SOCIETY 3 r 

III 

MY YOUNG MAN IN SOCIETY 

WK are not to live in this world alone. We 
are not to be hermits. Our life is to be colored 
by other people, and we are to mold and influ- 
ence other lives. In thinking about life we 
can not consider it with any wisdom at all, unless 
we take into account the social surroundings. 
The setting of a diamond is of great importance; 
much of its beauty may be hidden thereby. The 
background of a picture often makes or unmakes 
the success of the essential theme of the picture 
itself. So to a young man there can be no more 
important subject for discussion than how to 
carry himself with wisdom in his social relations. 

I shall not talk about the little formalities and 
ceremonies, and the etiquette of what such a man 
as Ward McAllister would call ' ' society. ' ' That 
is out of my domain. What I mean by society 
is all that social relation which has to do with 
men and women in home, church, and school 
life, and even in business. I take the word 
society in its largest meaning, and my words 



32 MY YOUNG MAN 

have a bearing upon your attitude toward men 
and women generally, in the every-day conversa- 
tions and dealings which you have with them; 
putting special emphasis on }^our relation to your 
friends and more intimate companions during 
those hours when you are off duty from your 
regular employment. 

A man's play hours are, if anything, more 
important on his character and upon the real 
success or failure of his life as a career than are 
his working hours. They are certainly a very 
much better test of the kind of man he is. Two 
men often work side by side in the same store, 
or in the same office, doing the same kind of 
work, and yet their social life in the hours away 
from business are as unlike as daylight and dark- 
ness. It is not so much what a man is doing 
when he is harnessed up to earn his living, as it 
is what he does of his own free will, when he is 
turned out to pasture, that reveals the real fiber 
of his character. The kind of friends and the 
associations that a young man chooses for his 
hours of recreation are of immeasurable impor- 
tance to him. There is always the opportunity 
in every city for a young man to make friends 
who will awaken the best that is in him, and 
inspire him to do his best because they appreciate 



IN SOCIETY 



33 



that, and will be disappointed if he does not come 
up to the noblest possibilities of his life. On the 
other hand, there is always the possibility of 
making friends with people who will not demand 
much in the way of character or ability ; people 
who will flatter, and make one think that it is 
all right to be careless and indifferent about the 
more refined and elevated side of one's nature. 
Every man is tempted to make friends with peo- 
ple who will be lenient with his faults and foibles, 
and who will not be disappointed when he falls 
below the best things. That is the very greatest 
danger that some young men have. Such social 
fellowships, if they are intimate, are a constant 
drag on a man to pull him downward. A young 
man should understand that it is not necessary 
that his social relations should be positively 
vicious or immoral in order to be hurtful or de- 
grading to him. All that is necessary in order 
for them to deteriorate his character and career 
is that they be silly and frittering, looking at life 
as a mere existence of eating and drinking and 
being merry. 

There are always these two great attitudes 
toward life. One is the earnest, forceful, atti- 
tude, which holds us to a steady regard of our 
talents and abilities as a sacred trust to develop 



34 MY YOUNG MAN 

and make the most of, and requires us to educate 
and restrain and control our own natures, so that 
we shall be the very strongest, brightest, happiest 
men that can be made out of the stuff with which 
we have to deal. Now, if a man is going to do 
that sort of thing with his life, the people with 
whom he associates in a familiar way are im- 
portant. Unconsciously they will have their 
influence upon him. They will affect his style 
of conversation. They will, in a great degree, 
dictate the standpoint from which he will look at 
things, especially in a moral way. They will 
leave a certain spiritual odor which it may not 
be possible to define exactly, but which is felt by 
us always when we come in close contact; with 
people. We all know that there are some people, 
when we meet and converse with them, and come 
in touch with their real thought and feeling, 
from whom we go away consciously exalted and 
lifted up and inspired, as tho we had breathed a 
whiff from a garden of roses, or from a bed of 
violets. There are other people who have a very 
different effect upon us ; some so coarse and gross 
that we never see them coming but we feel like 
putting our fingers to our noses, and the air does 
not seem* good enough to breathe until we are 
two blocks away. 



IN SOCIETY 



35 



But there are a great many people who can not 
be put in that category, who*are not bad people 
in the ordinary sense in which we say people are 
bad. Yet their estimate of life is not high. 
They think lightly and indifferently and irrever- 
ently of important things. Their life is purely 
animal. They are interested in what they eat 
and drink and wear, but the things of the mind 
and of the heart, those things which make for 
beauty of soul, have little or no part in their 
thought or conversation. They are given up to 
personal gossip, and to the little quips and scan- 
dals of a narrow, unprofitable social life. These 
are the people against whom the young man who 
is in earnest, who would be a Christian, who 
desires to carve out a strong and noble and vic- 
torious career for himself, must be on his guard. 

There is, however, another side to this ques- 
tion of a young man's social relations, about 
which I want to speak with great earnestness. 
I think many a young man who comes to the 
city with a determination to get on in business, 
to succeed as an engineer, or merchant, or law- 
yer, or doctor, or dentist, is often so taken up 
with the one wheel at the end of the one flume, 
through which he is pouring all the current of 
his life, that he does not properly appreciate the 



36 MY YOUNG MAN 

necessity of making his own personality attract- 
ive to the people with whom he comes in contact. 
Now, I am not speaking about this from a purely 
selfish and business standpoint. For, young 
men, you must remember that you are not here 
in this city, toiling and working day and night, 
simply to make a living ; but to make a life. 
Every day's happiness or unhappiness, joy or 
sorrow, success or failure, exaltation or depres- 
sion, smiles or tears, love or hate, good humor 
or anger, are threads which are being woven into 
that life which you are making. They are, 
therefore, all of them important ; you can not 
afford to be careless about them. You are build- 
ing up a personality, a man, and the kind of 
man you are building is the important thing. I 
urge upon you the wisdom of seeing to it that 
you are so working and reading and thinking 
and conversing — so holding yourself in your atti- 
tude to the men and women you know — that you 
are constantly becoming a more desirable man to 
know. So that your acquaintance will be valu- 
able because of the pleasure which people will 
find in personal contact with you. If you set 
about that, it will arouse a good many new ideas 
in your mind. 

Theodore Parker was accustomed to use a 



IAT SOCIETY 



37 



phrase which had in it a world of meaning. It 
expressed what he called ' ' the joy of delighting. ' ' 
And I imagine that there is wrapped up in that 
phrase that which is the greatest joy of life. If 
one will live in that spirit he will find himself 
growing happier as the years go on. A bright 
literary woman, who made the world brighter 
while she was in it, and has now gone to the 
world without clouds, commenting on this phrase, 
declares that the man who habitually tries to 
delight his fellow-men will find joy surrounding 
him like a great light, pervading his every sense 
like a pure air, and stimulating his every faculty 
like strong blood. 

I am not talking now about charity, or philan- 
thropy, or even that kind of helpfulness which I 
shall emphasize when I come to speak of the 
young man "as a neighbor." "The joy of 
delighting " is a thing quite apart from philan- 
thropies, so-called; it is quite apart even from the 
idea of benefiting one's fellows. Yet it is not 
necessarily selfish, and it is certainly not unim- 
portant. The Savior says, ' ' The life is more than 
meat. ' ' To him who loves and seeks for this joy 
of giving delight to the people he meets daily, 
rudeness, unkindness of word or act, will be 
impossible. That disagreeable species of doing 



38 MY YOUNG MAN 

good known as " plain speaking of needed 
truths " will be difficult; agreeable traits will be 
noticed and commented on, and disagreeable 
ones will not be mentioned. He will not hesitate 
to speak or repeat words of praise. If his fellows 
take the praise for mere flattery, and him for a 
mere flatterer, so much the worse for them — none 
the worse for him. But they are not likely to 
do that if a man is straightforward and earnest 
and genuine. 

The lover of ' ' the joy of delighting ' ' will seek 
to create beauty and grace in his own person, in 
all his surroundings. No smallest thing will be 
beneath his attention; his clothes, his manners, 
his conversation, everything about himself, in so 
far as his means and his station in life allow, 
will give pleasure to all eyes and ears. Also, he 
will seek to provide beauty and grace for the 
lives of others. Very small gifts it may be — it 
does not take much to make people glad; a pho- 
tograph, a flower, a remembered wish are often 
the cup of cold water that refreshes the courage 
of a weary heart, and speaks the message of an 
honest man, saying in unmistakable tones, " Let 
me give you delight." 

The lover of " the joy of delighting " will be 
friendly of countenance and word to all men 



IAT SOCIETY 39 

He will smile when he speaks. He will smile 
often when he need not speak. He will look 
with almost a smile into the eyes of even 
strangers, so overflowing will be his impulse. 
"She is just living sunshine," was said once of 
a woman who had a great love of this high joy 
of giving delight to others. When she crossed 
the threshold of a room, her simple smile spread 
as does a beam of light when shutters are thrown 
open. Her " good morning 5 ' at the breakfast 
table was a second beginning of the day to every 
one there. Such things do not belong to the 
women only; they are just as possible to men. 
And they are just as beautiful and helpful in 
men as in women. 

If one desires to live a life irresistible in its 
gracious influence on others, he needs but to 
live in this spirit. In pursuing such a course it 
will be impossible for him to remain selfish, for 
in seeking to give others delight we are compelled 
to find out their desires, and to look at life from 
their standpoint as well as our own. 

A gentleman once made a tea party for all the 
little girls in his town ; and when they were 
all gathered in his front yard, in white dresses 
and carefully tied sashes, he offered a doll for 
the most popular little girl in the crowd. 



4o 



MY YOUNG MAN 



But half the children did not know what ' ' most 
popular" meant. So he told them it was the 
best-liked little girl. All the children voted, and 
Mary Blaine got the doll. She was not the 
prettiest or the most clever of the children, but 
she got the doll. 

"Now," said the gentleman, "I will give 
another doll to the one that first tells me why 
you all like Maty the best. ' ' 

Nobody answered at first" But presently 
Fannie Wilson said, "It's because Mary alwaj^s 
finds out what the rest of us want to play, and 
then says, ' Let's play that ! ' " 

The gentleman said that was the best reason 
he had ever heard, and he should try for the 
rest of his life to find out what the people wanted 
to play, and then say, " Let's play that ! " 

Whoever lives his life in this spirit will leave 
behind him wherever he goes a memory like a 
benediction. When Charles II. was king of 
England, he sent his wife, Katharine, to Oxford, 
bidding her not to reappear in St. James for a 
full year. The warden of Merton entertained the 
Queen during the time, and the rooms which she 
occupied are still shown. One day, as she sat 
working at the open window, a bullfinch flew into 
the room. The Queen caught and held it until 



IN SOCIETY 4I 

a cage of hemp and rushes was made. Some 
weeks later, on June 3, as she was leaving, the 
bird escaped and flew away. On her departure 
from the college gate she said, ' ' Mr. Warden, in 
remembrance of my happy visit, I pray you 
always liberate hereafter a wild bullfinch on this 
day." 

So it is that on that day in June every year the 
warden comes out into the quadrangle at eleven 
o'clock, holding a little cage of hemp and rushes, 
in which is a bullfinch. The junior bursar, who 
has been waiting his arrival, then advances, say- 
ing: "Mr. Warden, is this Queen Katharine's 
bird?" 

"Ay," the warden replies; "this is Queen 
Katharine' s bird. ' ' 

The bursar then opens the cage and claps his 
hands until the bird flies away. 

The man who lives in the spirit of giving 
delight to others in all his social contact with 
men and women, will be ever remembered as if 
singing birds were let loose in the air to carol 
forth the joy his presence ever gave to his 
friends. 

I^et no man say, I have no time for such 
things. If a man has time to live, he has time "to 
live rightly and happily. We have no right to so 



42 MY YOUNG MAN 

rush through life that we lose all the sweetness 
and value out of it. Richard Burton's song, 
"If We Have the Time," is worthy the reflec- 
tion of every one of us, and I trust we may catch 
its spirit and use our time for the things most 
worth doing. He says: — 



If I had the time to find a place 
And sit me down full face to face 

With my better self, that can not show 

In my daily life that rushes so; 
It might be then I would see my soul 
Was stumbling still toward the shining goal, 

I might be nerved by the thought sublime — 
If I had the time. 



" If I had the time to let my heart 
Speak out and take in my life a part, 
To look about and to stretch a hand 
To a comrade quartered in no-luck land 
Ah, God! If I might just sit still 
And hear the note of the whippoorwill, 

I think that my wish with God's would rhyme- 
If I had the time! 



" If I had the time *o learn from you 
How much for comfort my word could do; 



IN SOCIETY 

And I told you then of my sudden will 
To kiss your feet when I did you ill! 
Tf the tears aback of the coldness feigned 
Could flow, and the wrong be quite explained — 
Brothers, the souls of us all would chime, 
If we had the time!" 



43 



44 



MY YOUNG MAN 



TV 

MY YOUNG MAN AS A LOVER 

The sweetest suggestion of a love story in all 
the Bible is the little glimpse we have into the 
long courtship between Jacob and Rachel. A 
three-volume novel is condensed in the single 
sentence: "And Jacob served seven years for 
Rachel; and they seemed unto him but a few 
days, for the love he had to her." Some stray 
singer, whose name I do not know, has sung its 
praises: — 

" 'Twas the love that lightened service! 

The old, old story sweet, 
That yearning lips and waiting hearts 

In melody repeat. 
As Jacob served for Rachel 

Beneath the Syrian sky, 
Like golden sands that swiftly drop, 

The toiling years went by. 

" Chill fell the dews upon him, 
Fierce smoked the' sultry sun; 
But what were cold or heat to him, 
Till that dear wife was won! 



AS A LOVER 45 

The angels whispered in his ear, 

'Be patient and be strong;' 
And the thought of her he waited for 

Was ever like a song. 

" Sweet Rachel, with the secret 

To hold a brave man leal; 
To keep him through the changeful years. 

Thine own in woe and weal; 
So that in age and exile, 

The death-damp on his face, 
Thy name to the dark valley lent 

Its own peculiar grace. 

"And 'There I buried Rachel,* 

He said of that lone spot 
In Ephrath, near to Bethlehem, 

When the wife he loved was not; 
For God had taken from him 

The brightness and the zest, 
And the heaven above thenceforward kept 

In fee his very best. 

" As Jacob served for Rachel 

Beneath the Syrian sky, 
And the golden sands of toiling years 

Went swiftly slipping by, 
The thought of her was music 

To cheer his weary, feet; 
'Twas love that lightened service, 

The old, old story sweet." 



4 6 MY YOUNG MAN 

It is impossible for me to enter upon the dis- 
cussion of this theme without feeling that I am 
not adequate to the task. It is easy to make 
jokes, and laugh at love and at the lover; but 
there is nothing more unwise. The great fact is 
certain that love is the supreme joy of any human 
life, and that if a man fails as a lover, he fails in 
the greatest opportunity and privilege of his 
earthly career. Nothing can ever fully make up 
to him for that failure. 

I would like, if I could, to talk in such a way 
that the discussion might be of some practical 
value, by way of suggestion or inspiration. I 
think many young men do not properly consider 
the fact, that no man has a moral right to pursue 
any woman as a lover, except with the intent of 
marriage. I am not now speaking of that friend- 
ship which one may have for many women, a 
frank spirit of comradeship; I am speaking of 
love. While all true love should be founded on 
or connected with a genuine friendship, it is 
something really very different. 

Many a man plays with his power to love until 
the possibility of a noble, supreme affection is 
lost. The resources of his nature are frittered 
away in half-hearted flirtations until, in his worn 
and wasted mental and moral equipment, there 



AS A LOVER 



47 



is not power enough left to rise to a high and 
holy passion. 

Many another young man unfits himself to be 
a noble and sincere lover by immoral and wicked 
associations with women. It is impossible that a 
man shall regard one woman as his plaything, 
a soiled and impure toy, which he may take up 
and thrust aside at his pleasure, for his own self- 
ish gratification, and have the perfectly pure and 
loving thought that the true lover ought to have 
about any other woman. Many a man soils his 
mind by an evil life, and so fills his memory and 
the chambers of his imagination with lustful 
images and impure pictures, that if the good 
woman to whom he afterward pays court but 
knew his thoughts she would turn from him with 
loathing and disgust. 

I can not too strongly urge the important 
truth that a man must have right and worthy 
thoughts of all women, and must hold himself as 
the sworn guardian and protector of all woman- 
hood, in order to be the chivalric lover he ought 
to be toward any one woman. Keep your heart 
clean ! Keep your mind pure ! Keep your body 
healthy and wholesome! Keep your record white, 
so that when love comes to you, you may look in 
the eyes the pure woman who is the object of 



48 MY YOUNG MAN 

your affection , and tell her your love with an 
honest heart, without feeling that you must blush 
over soiled, hidden pages in your history. 

I think many men do not properly appreciate 
that an insult to one woman is an insult to wom- 
anhood. A sin on the part of a man toward 
woman is just as dark and loathsome as it is on 
the part of a guilty- woman. A man has no right 
to ask that the woman he loves, and is willing to 
rnarry, shall be more careful of her person or her 
chastity than he is himself. The false standards 
of society that have forgiven or shut the eyes on 
a man's immorality, while the} 7 punished the 
woman for like guilt, do not by an)- means 
thwart or do away with the laws of God. With 
sympathetic interest I urge upon you, my broth- 
ers, that there is no sin that will more surely eat 
into the very citadel of happiness, and follow the 
sinner with relentless persistency, than a sin 
against womanhood. Woman's honor is the altar 
of home and humanity and civilization itself, and 
no man can lay profane hands on that altar, and 
not grievously suffer for it. God does not always 
pa)- at sunset, nor at the end of the week; but at 
last He pays. 

You can not exaggerate the power for good of 
a whole-hearted, noble love for a good woman. 



AS A LOVER 



49 



Henry Ward Beecher says that to most men love 
is a kind of well, to which they resort when they 
are thirsty, and draw the crystal treasure for their 
present need, and then turn again to other satis- 
fying experiences. But there is a love that, like a 
fountain, needs no cord or pole or windlass with 
which to draw, but full, pulsing night and day, 
in all seasons, sparkling, abundant, pours forth 
its treasure, not by the measure of a bucket, or 
by the capacity of the need, but according to the 
fulness of its own life. Such a love never dries 
up in the summer heat of prosperity, or freezes 
in the cold winter of poverty and misfortune. A 
man who knows a love like that, and is loved 
like that in return, has come into an experience 
that lifts him up into the fellowship of men like 
Dante and Petrarch and Jacob, up into the high- 
est and noblest fellowship of the ages. 

Matheson, the blind preacher of Edinburgh, 
says that love is the magic fountain of life. L,ove 
is the only thing which we need never outgrow. 
We are bound to outgrow everything else. How 
many gifts to our youth would be gifts to our old 
age? Wealth, fame, power, physical beauty, 
are all for the morning and the noontide; they 
are little coveted at evening. But love in old 
age can keep the dew of its youth. We have all 



5o 



MY YOUNG MAN 



seen a pure love-match, which was made by the 
girl and the hoy, retain, amid the evening shad- 
ows, its morning glow. The heart does not 
grow old with time. It may grow old with grief 
or bitterness or care, but not with time. Time 
has no empire over the heart. It has an empire 
over the eye, over the ear, over the cheek, over 
the hand; but not over the heart. The heart 
may be swept by storms, but not corroded by 
decay. It keeps no record of the flying years; 
it is untouched by the winter snow. The inscrip- 
tion ever written over the gates of the heart is, 
" There shall be no night there." 

I^ove is so sacred a thing that there can be no 
greater dishonor than to pretend love where it 
does not exist. Per feci frankness and candor 
should always be exercised in such important 
matters. It is possible for men to so dally with 
their own affections that they will not themselves 
know how hollow and insincere they are becom- 
ing. One of our recent novelists has put these 
words into the mouth of the heroine. They are 
spoken to the man who had professed to love 
her, and who had proved false: " You were not 
capable of love; you never knew what it means; 
from the first you were too untrue ever to love a 
woman. You talk of not meaning to do me 



AS A LOVER 51 

harm! You were never capable of doing me 
good. It was not in you. From first to last you 
were untrue. With a nature like yours nothing 
is sure or lasting. Everything changes with the 
mood. I should disbelieve you, tho all the world 
were on your side to declare me wrong. " It is a 
fearful thing to so waste one's power to be genu- 
ine and sincere and whole-hearted in affection 
and fidelity as to deserve such a rebuke. 

Let no man, as he values his happiness in 
time or eternity, make love to a woman unless 
the heart's full tide is behind it. The happiness 
of the world would be increased if, from the men 
who offer them love, women everywhere could 
get genuine and candid answers to " A' Woman's 
Question, ' ' as propounded by Adelaide Proctor: — 



;< Before I trust my fate to thee, 
Or place my hand in thine, 
Before I let thy future give 

Color and form to mine, 
Before I peril all to thee, 
Question thy soul to-night for me. 

' I break all slighter bonds, nor feel 
A shadow of regret; 
Is there one link within the past 
That holds thy spirit yet? 



5 2 MY YOUNG MAN 

Or is thy faith as clear and free 
As that which I can pledge to thee ? 



" Does there within thy dimmest dreams 

A possible future shine, 
Wherein thy life could henceforth breathe, 

Untouched, unshared by mine? 
If so, at any pain or cost, 
O tell me, before all is lost. 

" Look deeper still. If thou canst feel, 

Within thy inmost soul, 
That thou hast kept a portion back, 

While I have staked the whole; 
Let no false pity spare the blow, 
But in true mercy tell me so. 

" Is there within thy heart a need 

That mine can not fulfil ? 
One chord that any other hand 

Could better wake or still ? 
Speak now — lest, at some future day, 
My whole life wither and decay. 

" Lies there within thy nature hid 

The demon-spirit Change, 
Shedding a passing glory still 

On all things new and strange? 
It may not be thy fault alone — 
But shield my heart against thy own. 






AS A LOVER 

Couldst thou withdraw thy hand one day 

And answer to my claim, 
That fate, and that to-day's mistake — 

Not thou — had been to blame ? 
Some soothe their conscience thus; but thou 
Wilt surely warn and save me now." 



53 



54 MY YOUNG MAN 



MY YOUNG MAN AS A HUSBAND 

Great happiness can never crown married life 
without high ideals and a good deal of genuine 
sentiment on the part of both husband and wife. 
There is a great deal said in our day about realism 
in literature in contrast with the romantic, tho I 
think the fad has spent its course and the tide is 
turning the other way. However it may be in 
literature, in domestic life a hard and unromantic 
realism, that makes of home simply a lodging- 
house, and a lunch-counter, or another sort of 
club, banishes all that which makes home sacred 
and beautiful. 

Richard Watson Gilder recently said that 
much of the 'marital infelicity of the world would 
be evaded were men and women to read great 
poems as constantly as they do the newspapers. 
I suppose Mr. Gilder's thought is that the great 
poems are ideal. They go so far as to idealize 
human emotions and passions, which are the 
only real things in them. So Mr. Gilder doubt- 
less thinks that what husbands and wives need 



AS A HUSBAND 55 

most is purity and largeness of feeling, the in- 
spiration of whole-souled and unselfish emotion; 
that after the news of the day they need idealism 
and a savor of romance to soften the roughness 
of every-day living. The reading of poetry, he 
thinks, will tend to give this. 

It is, however, something more than the read- 
ing of poetry, it is the living of poetry that we 
all need. We need something in our lives that 
will set the burdens we carry on our shoulders, 
and the accounts we add up with brain and finger, 
and the perplexing problems we have to decide, 
to the rhythm of music. IyOve is the only 
alchemy that can idealize and glorify married 
life. Clara Bronson sings: 

" Have you noticed the change it sometimes makes 
In a woman's face — 
Passive it may be, and dull and cold, 
Neutral-tinted, and commonplace — 
When the sun falls on it? How swift it takes 
Meaning and color and soft outlines ? 
How strange new lights from the eyes will slip 
And new tints blossom on cheek and lip ? 
The whole face softens and warms and shines, 
And the hair, a miser grown overbold, 
Shows forth, of a sudden, undreamed-of gold 
Oh, there's many a woman, east and west, 
Must be in the sunshine to look her best! 



£6 MY YOUNG MAN 

" Have you ever noticed the change it makes 
In a woman's face 
And her heart and her life, that were cold and 

dull 
And slightly inclined to commonplace, 
When Love shines on them ? How there breaks 
Over her nature a wave of gold, 
Bringing out beauty unknown before, 
Mellowing, widening more and more, 
Lifting her up till her eyes behold 
Ever new blooms for her hands to cull, 
So she and her life grow beautiful? 
Oh, there's never a woman, east or west, 
But must live in Love's sunshine to live her 
best!" 

And you may be very sure that the woman 
in the case must be happy and at her best if 
you are to have a noble and jo3^ous married 
life. 

No woman who is capable of making a true 
man, who is something more than a mere animal, 
genuinely happy, as the changing years go on, 
can be at her best without the inspiration and 
cheer of true love. Many a man fails to under- 
stand the very delicate and sensitive creation 
which God places in his hands at the marriage 
altar in the person of his wife. It is not simply 
a cook, or a chambermaid, or a housekeeper that 



AS A HUSBAND 57 

a genuine man wants when he marries; it is a 
wife, with all that holy word means, and only 
genuine love and fellowship can crown woman- 
hood and make it wifely. 

There was in the family of Mrs. Mary T. 
Iyathrop, a woman of beautiful memory, a young 
lady who, on one occasion, received a valentine 
written by a talented young gentleman, and she 
asked Mrs. Iyathrop to answer it. 

The result of the request was the following 
splendid poem: 



Do you know you have asked for the costliest thing 

Ever made by the Hand above — 
A woman's heart, and a woman's life, 

And a woman's wonderful love? 



Do you know you have asked for this p- iceless 
thing 

As a child might ask for a toy ? 
Demanding what others have died to win, 

With the reckless dash of a boy. 



You have written my lesson of duty out; 

Manlike, you have questioned me; 
Now stand at the bar of a woman's soul 

Until I shall question thee. 



58 



MY YOL'XG MAX 



" You require your mutton shall always be hct, 
Your stockings and shirt shall be whole; 
I require your life shall be true as God's stars, 
And pure as heaven your soul. 

" You require a cook for your mutton and beef; 
I require a far greater thing; 
A seamstress you're wanting for stockings and 
shirts — 
I look for a man and a king. 

" A king for the beautiful realm called Home 
And a man whom the Maker, God, 
Shall look upon as He did on the first, 
And say, ' It is very good.' 

" I am fair and young, but the rose will fade 
From my soft young cheek one day; 
Will you love me then, 'mid the falling leaves, 
As you did 'mid the bloom of May? 

" Is your love an ocean, so strong and deep 
I may launch my all on its tide? 
A loving woman finds heaven or hell 
On the day she becomes a bride. 

*' I require all things that are good and true — 

All things that a man should be; 
If you give this all, I will stake my life 
To be all you demand of me. 



AS A HUSBAND 59 

" If you can not be this, a laundress and cook 
You can hire with little pay; 
But a woman's heart and a woman's life 
Are not to be won that way." 

I am sure you will be interested to know that 
this striking poem, written from a woman's 
standpoint, fell into the hands of a very bright 
man, Mr. Frederick W. Sisson, of Arizona, who 
immediately replied to it in a poem entitled, ' ' A 
Man's Reply " : 

" I stand at the bar of your pure woman's soul, 
Condemned in the cause that you plead; 
My only defense is the simple request 

That you'll judge me by motive, not deed. 

" For remember that man's but a child in the dark, 
Tho formed by the Hand from above; 
He will fall many times', but will walk forth at last 
In the sunshine of Infinite Love. 

" So I'm boldened to answer your question so fair 
And give you '■ a man's reply,' 
That for the prize of a true woman's love 
I am ready to live or die. 

" You say that the man who gains your love 
Must be brave and true and good; 
I answer that she who wins my heart 
Must a type be of true womanhood. 



60 MY YOUNG MAN 

*' You say that you look for 'a man and a king, 
A very prince of the race; 
I look for a kind and generous heart, 
And not for a queenly face. 



' You require all things that are grand and true, 
All things that a man should be; 
I ask for a woman, with all that implies, 
And that is sufficient for me. 



You ask for a man without a fault, 

To live with here on earth; 
I ask for a woman, faults and all, 

For by faults I may judge her worth. 

I ask for a woman made as of old, 

A higher form of man; 
His comforter, helper, adviser, and friend, 

As in the original plan; 

A woman who has an aim in life, 
Who finds 'life worth the living;' 

Who makes the world better for being here, 
And for others her life is giving. 

I will not require all I've asked 
In these lines so poor and few; 

I only pray that you may be all 
That God can make of you." 



AS A HUSBAND 6l 

Most men would have little difficulty in assur- 
ing the happiness of their married lives, if they 
would continue to practise the same deference 
and gentle, unselfish courtesy during the years 
after marriage, which they exercised during the 
period of courtship. I once lived in a house in 
Massachusetts, built and owned by, and for a 
great many years the residence of, a brilliant but 
erratic novelist, who had great fame in his day. 
The neighbors had a good many traditions and 
stories to tell about the place. One of these was 
very beautiful. On every Thursday evening 
after dinner, for over twenty years, this gentle- 
man would carefully array himself in his dress 
suit, as tho he were going out to spend the even- 
ing at a wedding or reception. He would then 
take a walk, and, coming back, would ring his 
own front-door bell with as much ceremony as 
tho he were making an evening call. In the 
meantime his wife had made a most careful and 
elaborate toilet, and now met him at the door in 
her very best, as she did when he was courting 
her. Then they went to the parlor and spent 
the evening together. Nothing was ever allowed 
to break up this courtship evening of the week. 
If people called, no matter who, or how urgent 
their business, they were always told by the ser- 



62 MY YOUNG MAN 

vants that the master and mistress of the house- 
hold were out — - and so they were to all except 
one another and their dream of love. Their 
neighbors who knew their strange and beautiful 
habit never thought of calling on that night, and 
they grew to rather look for it, and on seeing 
the lights in the parlor window would say, "It's 
honeymoon night at the Terrace." No doubt 
every home in the community was a little happier 
and more loving because of that unique and 
beautiful example. Years after the man was 
dead, his widow told me the story herself, and 
her face glowed as she recalled it, and love's 
sweet rain wet her face at the memory. 

One of the sweetest love stories treasured up 
in modern literary circles is the married love 
of Robert Browning, the poet, and his wife, the 
scarcely less famous poet, Elizabeth Barrett 
Browning. Clifford Howard says that wherever 
Mrs. Browning trod, whatever she touched, 
became endowed to her husband with the sacred- 
ness of her presence. When Mr. Browning 
returned with her on a visit to England, after an 
absence of several years, he repaired to the little 
church in which they had been married, and 
there at the entrance he reverently kneeled and 
kissed the paving stones upon which she, the 



AS A HUSBAND 63 

very light of his being, had stepped. And in 
after years, when the light had gone from his 
life, he sought this sacred spot on the twelfth of 
each September, and in the dusk of evening 
shadows the passer-by might have seen a white- 
haired man kneeling for a moment, as if in 
prayer, before the doorway of the dark and silent 
church. 

Not once in all the years of their married life 
was Browning absent from his wife a single day. 
At home or on their occasional journeys he was 
ever with her, happiest when ministering to her 
comfort. Often ill and unable to leave her room, 
he nursed her with the tenderness of a woman, 
cheering her in her convalescence with stories 
and songs, or reading to her for hours at a time, 
as he oft had in the days before their marriage. 

It was in his touching thoughtfulness — in his 
little acts of loving and unsolicited attention — 
that his love for her was most truly shown. Oft- 
times would he rise early in the morning, long 
ere the time for her awakening, and hastening 
forth into the garden or the fields, gather a bunch 
of fragrant blossoms to place at her bedside, that 
they might be the first realities of life to greet 
her with their sunshine and with their tender 
message of love upon her return from the world 



64 MY YOUNG MAN 

of dreams. His every thought, his every care, 
was of her, to add to the joy or the comfort of 
her life, and many were the means devised by his 
thoughtful solicitude for the accomplishment of 
his loving purpose. To shield her delicate eyes 
from the light he had placed in the window of 
her room a small shutter of mica, so arranged 
that the sunlight might fall upon her table in 
subdued and gentle radiance. 

Browning's story of the last evening they had 
together on earth shows his love for her in an 
exquisite way. She said, on that last evening, 
"It is merely the old attack, not so severe a 
one as that of two years ago. There is no 
doubt that I shall soon recover. ' ' And so they 
talked over plans for the summer and the next 
year. 

Suddenly Browning saw that the inevitable 
change was coming, and this is his description of 
it : " Then came, what my heart will keep until 
I see her again, and longer — the most perfect 
expression of her love for me within my knowl- 
edge of her. Always smiling happily, and with 
a face like a girl's, in a few minutes she died in 
my arms, her head on my cheek. There was no 
lingering nor acute pain, nor consciousness of 
separation; but God took her to Himself as you 



AS A HUSBAND 65 

would lift a sleeping child from a dark, uneasy 
bed into your arms and the light. When I 
asked, ' How do you feel ? ' the last word was, 
'Beautiful!' " 

If any of you feel that I have idealized the 
relations between husband and wife, I can only 
plead that there will be many who will try to 
make them seem poor and mean and common- 
place to you, and few enough who will seek to 
throw around your living the glow and fascina- 
tion of the spiritual. 

To make married life what it ought to be in 
this world, there must ever be, as an undercurrent 
to our thinking and living, the thought of the 
other world, and the consecration of that higher 
love toward God that hallows and gives perma- 
nence to all human affection. Martin Luther's 
wedding ring bore an image of Christ. Every 
true marriage will bear such a seal, inwardly if 
not outwardly. On thousands of wedding rings 
the Christ image grows brighter and brighter 
unto the perfect day. 



66 MY YOUNG MAN 



VI 

MY YOUNG MAN AS A CHURCH MEMBER 

The Christian Church is, at the present day, 
whatever else may be said for or against it, the 
organization of goodness in modem life. In say- 
ing that I make no claim that all goodness among 
men is in the church, or that all the church is 
good; I simply state a fact which is easily proven 
— that the great overwhelming majority of the 
forces that make for righteousness as a positive 
factor in discouraging sin and putting down 
iniquity, forces that stand with emphasis for all 
goodness as opposed definitely to all badness, have 
their organized form in the various brandies of 
the Christian Church. 

Therefore I say, without any hesitation what- 
ever, that every Christian man is under obliga- 
tion to unite himself definitely, openly, and 
enthusiastically with that wing of the Christian 
Church where it appears to him he can be of 
most value to the cause of goodness in the world, 
and can help on with greatest vigor the capture 
of the world by Jesus Christ. I will state plainly 



AS A CHURCH MEMBER 67 

what I mean by a Christian man. According to 
my thinking Jesus Christ himself was the first 
Christian, and any man has a right to call him- 
self a Christian who is trying, with an honest 
heart, to model his life after the life of Jesus 
Christ. If a man takes Christ as his teacher, as 
his Savior from his sins, as his inspiration to 
goodness, and reverently seeks to stand in the 
same attitude toward life and his fellow-men that 
Jesus took, and endeavors to please Christ by his 
thoughts and words and conduct, then it seems 
to me that that man is a Christian. And a man 
who determines to be a Christian should on every 
account unite himself with some branch of the 
Christian Church, where his confession of Christ 
will be open, and where his fellowship with 
other Christians will be congenial and helpful to 
himself, and where his own service in return 
will be of value. 

There are a good many men who are honestly, 
I doubt not, seeking to lead Christian lives, but 
who are remaining outside of the church. Some- 
times they say that their position is more liberal, 
and that church membership is often narrow and 
bigoted. But I am sure that that excuse will 
not stand the light of the most casual investiga- 
tion. Free love may be said to be more liberal 



68 MY YOUNG MAN 

in a sense than marriage. Marriage is a very 
narrow institution, in some ways; but any other 
course would subvert all family life, and bring 
about a reign of immoral anarchy. The guer- 
rilla or the bushwhacker, taken in the same 
sense, pursues a more liberal course than the vol- 
unteer soldier, who enlists and takes the oath of 
allegiance to his country, subjects himself to dis- 
cipline, and becomes a uniformed defender of the 
flag. But it is not the guerrillas or the bush- 
whackers who are counted upon to win victories 
for the national arms, but the trained and disci- 
plined soldiery, who have come out openly and 
united with the army. So I am compelled to 
bear testimony that I have never known any 
permanent service of real value to be performed 
by the religious bushwhackers and guerrillas 
with whom I have often come in contact. Such 
people usually come to be mere Gospel tramps, 
who go about with itching ears and idle hands, 
seeking after every new thing, but never coming 
to be counted on as a reliable force in the fight 
against wickedness. 

There are others who excuse themselves by 
saying that it is not necessary to belong to the 
church in order to maintain Christian integrity. 
If we were to admit that for a moment, it would 



AS A CHURCH MEMBER 69 

still be interesting to point out the fact that the 
Christian teaching, and the widespread influences 
of Christianity, which make the moral life of 
some people outside of the church, have been 
created and are maintained by the churches, and 
do not exist anywhere in the world except where 
the Christian Church is strongly entrenched and 
supported. And is it not a cowardly thing, an 
ungrateful and unmanly thing, for a man who 
believes in the Divine influences of the Christian 
religion, and who confesses that it is his desire 
and purpose to model his own life in harrnony 
with them, to yet thrust upon other shoulders the 
entire burden of sustaining the stream of influ- 
ence which has made his own honorable life a 
possibility? Such an attitude is unmanly and 
degrading, and if persisted in can but deteriorate 
and lower the strength and tone of a man's char- 
acter. 

There is another reason why it is impossible to 
alienate ourselves from other friends of Jesus 
Christ by remaining outside of all of the Christian 
family homes of the church, without failing to 
attain the noblest type of Christian manhood. 
The Christian religion, above all others, is a per- 
sonal religion. It gathers about the person of 
Jesus Christ. A man might believe all sorts of 



70 MY YOUNG MAN 

abstract truth, and yet not be a Christian. The 
very essence of Christianity is to know and love 
and obey Jesus Christ. All our service as Chris- 
tians takes on a tinge of romance and the glow 
of heroism because we do it, not as unto men 
only, but for Christ's sake. 

Robert Bruce, king of Scotland, was at one 
time hunted through his native land until, like 
the Master, he could have said: ' ' The foxes have 
holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the 
Son of Man hath not where to la} T his head." 
He had on one occasion been traveling as he 
could, under cover, through the Highland glens 
all day long. He was tired out and wet and hun- 
gry. He must find some place for shelter and 
food. At last he came in sight of a little cottage 
with its thatched roof, and, with the courage of 
despair, he went boldly into it. He found the 
mistress, an old, true-hearted Scotchwoman, sit- 
ting alone. Upon seeing a stranger enter, she 
asked him who and what he was. The king 
answered that he was a traveler who was jour- 
neying through the country. 

"All travelers," answered the good woman, 
' ' are welcome here for the sake of one. ' ' 

" And who is that one," said the king, "for 
whose sake 3-ou make all travelers welcome ? ' ' 



AS A CHURCH MEMBER ■ 71 

"It is our lawful king, Robert trie Bruce," 
answered the woman, ' ' who is the rightful lord 
of this country; and, although he is now pursued 
and hunted after with hounds and horns, I hope 
to live to see him king over all Scotland. ' ' 

The old Scotchwoman kept the door of her 
cottage open with hospitality for the sake of one 
whom she regarded as her king. How much the 
more shall we men of these latter days of the 
nineteenth century — a century all aglow with the 
conquests of Jesus Christ; a century whose brain 
has been inspired by Him; a century in which 
art and literature and invention and learning and 
government have all felt the purifying and uplift- 
ing influence of Jesus Christ; a century where 
the name of Christ has been the war-cry for lib- 
erty and progress and manhood — give to Christ 
our most open and devoted service ! 

Young Sherman Hoar, of Massachusetts, a 
noble representative of a great family famous for 
its production of public men, who fell a victim 
during the Spanish war to his devotion to the 
needs of the sick soldiers among the Massachu- 
setts volunteers, used to say to the young men 
at religious conventions of his church, that it 
was a great mistake for them not to dare to seem 
to be as good as they really were. He said 



72 



MY YOUNG MAN 



young men often thought it was good form, in 
order not to be hypocrites, to let the world 
believe that they were a little worse than they 
really were. Such a notion he ridiculed, saying, 
' ' Why should you not dare to be .regarded as 
good as you really are? " And so I say to you, 
that 3 7 ou owe it to your manhood, you owe it to 
your fellow-men with whom you associate, and 
you owe it to Jesus Christ, your L,ord and King, 
to enlist openly, and take upon yourself the vow 
of allegiance as a uniformed soldier of Jesus 
Christ. 

It should be to you an interesting and suggest- 
ive fact that Lieutenant Hobson, the most pic- 
turesque hero of the Spanish war, is a young 
man of genuine religious devotion. When it was 
decided that he would make the attempt to sink 
the Merrimac in the channel at the mouth of the 
harbor of Santiago, where the chances were very 
slight that his life would not be the forfeit of his 
brave deed, he proceeded to make his will, which 
is now in the hands of his father in Alabama. 
The opening clause of this historic document 
reads: " For my near and distant future, I leave 
myself, without anxiety, in the hands of Al- 
mighty God. " So it was with prayer and conse- 
cration that the most heroic deed of the war was 



AS A CHURCH MEMBER 



73 



begun. Every day of common life has its oppor- 
tunities and its demands for heroism, and we 
shall not acquit ourselves in a way worthy of our 
manhood, unless we give ourselves the benefit of 
a loyal attitude toward Christ, and the strength 
which comes from being in marching touch with 
other brave and heroic soldiers of the Christian 
faith. 

Christ asks of us this open and public enlist- 
ment. He says: "If any man will confess me 
before men, him will I confess before my Father 
and his holy angels." Observation shows that 
without this public confession and vital union 
with the Christian army all a man' s good wishes 
toward Christianity are practically of little value, 
and in these times of ours, when the work before 
the Christian Church is so great, and when the 
opportunities of Christian service are so abundant, 
no man who has a vestige of reverence for Christ 
in his heart should hold back from bringing all 
the force he has into the campaign against in- 
iquity. It is not negative, nerveless, wishy-washy, 
goody-goody, do-nothing sort of people, tho they 
do no positive evil, who help on righteousness on 
the earth; but the men who join a company, and 
are trained to keep step with other soldiers, and 
shoulder the musket, and stand out as a positive 



74 



MY YOUNG MAN 



factor to help win the day for goodness and for 
Christ. Positive men we need, men who are 
ready to act and do. We may well sing with 
Mackay: 



' Men of thought! be up and stirring, 

Night and day; 
Sow the seed, withdraw the curtain, 

Clear the way! 
Men of action, aid and cheer them 

As you may! 
There's a fount about to stream, 
There's a light about to beam, 
There's a warmth about to glow, 
There's a flower about to blow, 
There's a midnight blackness changing 

Into gray; 
Men of thought and men of action, 

Clear the way! 

[i Once the welcome light has broken, 

Who shall say 
What shall be the unmingled glories 

Of the day? 
What the evil that shall perish 

In its ray ? 
Aid the dawning, tongue and pen; 
Aid it, hopes of honest men; 
Aid it, paper, aid it, type; 
Aid it, for the hour is ripe, 



AS A CHURCH MEMBER 

And our earnest must not slacken 

Into play. 
Men of thought and men of action, 

Clear the way! 



Lo ! a cloud's about to vanish 

From the day; 
And a brazen wrong to crumble 

Into clay; 
Lo! the. Right's about to conquer, 

Clear the way! 
With the Right shall many more 
Enter smiling at the door; 
With the giant Wrong shall fall 
Many others, great and small, 
That for ages long have held us 

For the prey. 
Men of thought and men of action, 

Clear the way!" 



75 



7 6 MY YOUNG MAN 



VII 

MY YOUNG MAN AS A NEIGHBOR 

Jesus Christ is an expert in regard to social 
relations. No man whose name is marked on 
the roll of history has such authority on the way 
one man should treat another. He has seen fit 
to put the clearest possible emphasis on our duty 
to our neighbors. That clear and heart-pricking 
story of the man who was ambushed by high- 
waymen on the Jericho road, stripped of his 
money and clothes and left to die, and who was 
passed by, first by one and then another of whom 
better things might have been expected, but was 
finally rescued by a man of another nationality 
out of pure human brotherliness, has gotten into 
the heart of humanity. Not only sermons and 
essays have been written about it, but great 
novels and poems and paintings have enshrined 
it, and multiplied organizations throughout the 
world seek to perpetuate it on an enlarged scale 
in human conduct. 

In that story, as in all His teachings, this 
Divine Expert on neighborliness makes it evi- 



AS A NEIGHBOR 



77 



dent that according to His thought our neighbor 
is the man who needs us and whom it is within 
our power to help. He may live next door, or 
he may live in Puerto Rico, or Manila, or Cape 
Town; but if he needs us, and we may stretch 
across land and sea to heal his heart-ache or feed 
his famine, and give him a chance to be a man 
again, he is our neighbor. We are too apt to 
think of our neighbor as the man who is in our 
own social set, the one who is on a par with us 
in the financial and social circle, and from whom 
we may expect equal returns for any kindness or 
mercy which we may extend. But that is not 
according to Christ's teaching. Our neighbor is 
the man from whom we may never expect any- 
thing in return unless it be gratitude and love, 
but one to whom we may stretch the arm of help 
in the name of brotherhood through Christ. 
Christ has made every man a personality with a 
rightful claim on our attention. 

It is related by a distinguished politician that 
during Mr. Cleveland's last term as president, 
one of those rascally loafers in Washington, who 
sometimes find their way into ofiice, rented the 
house of an aged widow who was dependent on 
that source for her entire income. He put her 
off from month to month, and finally laughed in 



78 MY YOUNG MAN 

her face 1 as he told her that he wouldn't pay, and 
that she could not make him pay. He would 
not yo out till the law put him out, and he would 
avail himself of all the delays possible. She con- 
sulted a lawyer who had been a friend of her 
family for years, but the man was even more 
impudent to him. The case was so hard that 
the attorney went personally to the president, 
who heard the facls, and then said in an indig- 
nant tone, " Get the fellow's note." 

" But his note isn't worth the paper it is writ- 
ten on." 

"No matter. Get his note, and bring it to 
me." 

There was no trouble in carrying out this 
request, the debtor expressing his delight at 
being allowed to settle at the trouble of writing 
a worthless obligation. 

The lawyer took it to the president and said: 
''Now what?" 

" This," replied the president, as he wrote his 
name across the back. "I indorse it; now de- 
mand payment." 

The office-holder was in a leading hotel when 
the lawyer walked up to him and asked a settle- 
ment as he handed him the note. The fellow 
sneered until he turned the paper over. Then 



AS A NEIGHBOR 



79 



lie turned purple, stammered out a request that 
the lawyer wait there for ten minutes, and inside 
of that time he was back with the money. 

Before any man sneers at the claim which the 
poorest and weakest of his fellow-men have upon 
his neighborly kindness, let him look at the 
indorsement which Jesus Christ has written 
across the back of that claim. It reads like this: 
1 ' Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of 
the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it 
unto me." 

" If I should see 
A brother languishing in sore distress. 
And I should turn and leave him comfortless, 

When I might be 
A messenger of hope and happiness — 
How could I ask to have what I denied, 
In my own hour of bitterness supplied ? 

" If I might share 
A brother's load along the dusty way, 
And I should turn and walk alone that day, 

How could I dare — 
When in the evening watch I knelt to pray — 
To ask for help to bear my pain and loss, 
If I had heeded not my brother's cross ? 

" If I might sing 
A li :tle song to cheer a fainting heart, 
And I should seal my lips and sit apart 



80 MY YOUNG MAN 

When I might bring 
A bit of sunshine for life's ache and smart — 
How could I hope to have my grief relieved, 
If I kept silent when my brother grieved ? 

" And so I know 
That day is lost wherein I fail to lend 
A helping hand to some wayfaring friend 

But if it show 
A burden lightened by the cheer I sent, 
Then do I hold the golden hours well spent, 
And lay me down to sleep in sweet content." 

This neighborly spirit is a characteristic of the 
greatest souls. Frommel, the great Berlin court 
preacher, who was for many years one of the 
influential men of the German Fatherland, was 
as greatly beloved among the poor as among the 
rich and great, because he was a true neighbor. 
Since his death many are the stories they tell of 
his big-hear tedness. 

A poor old woman lay dying, and Frommel, 
being in that neighborhood and hearing of her 
case, went to see her. Seeing that she was very 
ill, he gave her what she so much desired, his 
last blessing, after which he asked her if there 
were not some wish ungratified which he could 
make a reality for her. She acknowledged that 
there was, but at the same time refused to tell it 



AS A NEIGHBOR 8 1 

for fear he would think her very worldly and 
weak. Finally, however, she yielded to his kind 
persuasion, and confessed that she had a very 
great desire to ' ' taste cherries once more ' ' be- 
fore she died. Knowing that the physicians had 
said that her case was hopeless, and that her 
death was distant only a few hours, Frommel 
determined to gratify her longing. So he de- 
scended the stairs in quest of a fruit-woman, and 
fortunately found one near at hand with a large 
basket of luscious fruit. To the astonishment of 
the woman he bought her entire stock, and it 
was soon deposited at the bedside of the dying 
woman, to whom he said: "Now, mother, for 
once I want to see you eat just all the cherries 
you can hold. ' ' To the surprise of herself and 
Frommel it seemed to be just the medicine she 
needed, and the old woman got well. 

Frommel always reminds me of Henry Ward 
Beecher. You could not go to Brooklyn with 
any tale of neighborly kindness that was good 
enough to be true that would be doubted for a 
moment in that city where they knew and loved 
Mr. Beecher so well. After he had grown to be 
an old man this incident happened, which reveals 
the spirit in which the man lived all his life : 

An Irish girl, named Bridget Dowd, was a 



82 MY YOUNG MAN 

servant in Brooklyn. Her cousin, a young girl, 
came over from the old country and hunted 
through the streets of Brooklyn to find Bridget. 
Finally she was completely lost and determined to 
ring the door-bell of the nearest house and make 
inquiries. 

The door was opened by a noble-looking old 
man, with a magnificent physique and wavy 
white hair. She asked him the address, but, see- 
ing that she was troubled, instead of answering 
her directly, he inquired in a kindly way what 
she wanted. Encouraged by his manner, the 
young immigrant told him her troubles and 
explained why she wanted the address. 

"Well," said he, "you just wait till I get 
my hat, and I'll go along and show you the 
way." 

In a moment he reappeared and the strange 
couple started off together. As they walked he 
asked her all about herself, and her life and 
troubles in the old country, and she told him 
everything. They chatted together like old 
friends, and the young woman, delighted as she 
was with her new friend, could not understand 
the reason of the puzzling glances that met them 
from every one whom they passed. 

At last they stopped before a handsome house, 



AS A NEIGHBOR 83 

and the old man said, " You stand here at the 
gate while I ring the bell." 

He then went down to the basement door, and 
when the servant girl appeared he asked, " Does 
Bridget Dowd live here ? ' ' 

' \ Yes, sir, ' ' said the servant ; ' ' she is the 
upstairs girl. ' ' 

' ' Well, ' ' said the visitor, chuckling to himself, 
' ■ will you kindly tell her that Mr. Beecher would 
like to see her ? ' ' 

The girl carried the message upstairs, but on 
J;he way she met some of the members of the 
family, to whom she told the astonishing thing 
that had occurred. 

"What!" said one of the ladies, "Mr. 
Beecher at our basement door ? How dreadful ! 
Why didn't you ask him to the front door? Go 
down at once, you foolish girl, and apologize to 
him, and ask him to come to the other door. ' ' 

But Mr. Beecher refused to budge from the 
basement door. He wanted to see Bridget Dowd, 
and in a few minutes that young woman, much 
flustered at the honor that was being done her, 
came to the door. 

' ' Are you Miss Dowd ? ' ' asked Mr. Beecher. 

"Yes, sir.", 

"Well," said he, beckoning to the young 



8 4 



MY YOUNG MAN 



woman at the gate, who now came forward and 
was revealed for the first time to her amazed 
cousin, ' ' do you recognize this young woman ? ' ' 

But there was no answer. The two girls flew 
into each other's arms, showering Irish greetings 
upon each other, and Mr. Beecher, his face 
wreathed in smiles, turned away. They recovered 
themselves enough to run after him and try to 
thank him, but he would listen to nothing. He 
bade them good-by in his kindly way, and tho 
he probably never saw them again, there were 
two earnest young Catholics who never con- 
sidered it a sin after having been to mass to go 
to Plymouth Church and hear a Protestant 
sermon whenever they could get away from their 
household duties. 

The current literature of the world has been full 
of Mr. Gladstone as a neighbor during the last 
year. I think one of the most interesting stories 
which has come to the surface is that of a plain 
wreath of oak leaves which was sent, through 
the English consul in Berlin, with the expressed 
hope that it might find a place on Mr. Gladstone's 
coffin. The sender was a Berlin shoemaker, who 
at one time owed his success in business to the 
' ' Grand Old Man. ' ' About twenty years ago 
this shoemaker came to London and established 



AS A NEIGHBOR 85 

a small workshop; but, in spite of industry and 
strict attention to business, he continued so poor 
that he had not even enough money to buy 
leather for work which had been ordered. One 
day he was in the whispering gallery in St. Paul's 
Cathedral with his betrothed bride, to whom he 
confided the sad condition of his affairs, and the 
impossibility of their marriage. 

The young girl forced upon him all her small 
savings, with which he went next day to pur- 
chase the required leather, without, however, 
knowing that he was followed by a gentleman 
commissioned to make inquiries about him. The 
shoemaker was not a little surprised when the 
leather merchant told him that he was willing to 
open a small account with him. In this way 
did fortune begin to smile upon him, and soon, to 
his great astonishment, he received orders from 
the wealthiest circles in London society, and his 
business became so well established that he was 
able to marry and have a comfortable home of his 
own. He was known in London for years as the 
' ' Parliament Shoemaker. ' ' But only when, to 
please his German wife, he left London for 
Berlin, did the leather merchant tell him that he 
owed his ' ' credit account ' ' to none other than 
Mr. Gladstone. The great premier had been in 



86 MY YOUNG MAN 

the whispering gallery when the poor shoemaker 
had been telling his betrothed of his poverty, and 
owing to the peculiar acoustics of the gallery had 
heard every word that had been said, and like 
the true neighbor he was to all humanity, he 
followed him up and did the neighborly deed 
which gave joy and success to all his future life. 
I have given you these glimpses into real life 
because, after all, life itself is the great teacher. 
I can only say to you, as Christ used to say at 
the conclusion of His teaching stories, ' ' Go 
thou and do likewise. ' ' 



; Do you know a heart that hungers 

For a word of love and cheer ? 
There are many such about us; 

It may be that one is near. 
Look around you. If you find it, 

Speak the word that's needed so, 
And your own heart may be strengthened, 

By the help that you bestow. 

1 It may be that some one falters 
On the brink of sin and wrong, 

And a word from you might save him — 
Help to make the tempted strong. 

Look about you, O my brother, 
What a sin is yours and mine 



AS A NEIGHBOR 87 

If we see that help is needed 
And we give no friendly sign. 

Never think kind words are wasted — 

Bread on water cast are they. 
And it may be we shall find them 

Coming back to us some day, 
Coming back when sorely needed, 

In the time of sharp distress; 
So, my friend, let's give them freely; 

Gift and giver God will bless." 



MY YOUNG MAN 



VIII 
MY YOUNG MAN AND HIS MONEY 

Money is condensed clothing and food, both 
for the body and the mind. If clothes are good, 
if food is essential, then money is necessary. 
Money is condensed civilization; it is books, art, 
newspapers, music, manufactories, trolley cars, 
railway trains, bridges, steamers — all these and 
more — in a portable form. If these things are 
necessary to civilization, and civilization is a good 
thing for mankind, then money is a good thing. 

The Christian religion does not make war on 
money. The Bible never said that money is the 
root of all evil. What it does say is that ' ' the 
love of money is the root of all evil ; ' ' which is 
another way of saying that the root sin of the 
world, from which all other sins spring, is selfish- 
ness. When a man loves money, he loves what 
in itself is a good thing, but which when loved 
and worshiped breeds every manner of sin and 
crime that has been known in human history. 
• Now, I should like very much to say some 



AND HIS MONEY 



89 



eminently practical and helpful things about 
money. It is the duty of every man to earn 
money, to earn more than enough money to sus- 
tain his own daily needs and the needs of those 
who are dependent upon him. I want to assure 
every young man that life will be a great deal 
happier for you if you go through your earthly 
career having always on hand more money than 
you need to spend to-day. That ordinary human 
foresight which leads a man of average common 
sense to store up something for breakfast before 
he goes to bed at night, to look out for times of 
sickness and enforced idleness, to prepare a store 
against old age, will never be frowned upon by 
any well-balanced public teacher. 

The Scriptures say that ' ' the destruction of 
the poor is their poverty. ' ' We often see this 
illustrated. I never pity a man who has to work 
for his living. I often pity men who have not 
become interested in any honorable employment 
that gives their life some noble aim and purpose. 
To be poor simply in the sense of having to exert 
yourself mentally or physically, or both, in order 
to earn your livelihood, is, as I look at it, no 
curse. But to be poor in the sense that you have 
unfitted yourself by wasteful habits or idle years 
for the earning of sufficient money to insure the 



go MY YOU ATG MAA f 

supply of the needs of your, daily life, is a very 
sad thing. 

Young men in this country are, perhaps, more 
wasteful and extravagant than in any other 
country in the world. They get better wages 
here, and they throw away more money on un- 
necessary luxury and dissipation, than in any 
other land. I do not know any virtue that the 
young men of America need to have emphasized 
on their thought more than the virtue of economy. 
You must remember that it is not the amount of 
money you make, but it is the amount that you 
save, that is to add to the permanent comfort — I 
mean the reserve comfort — of your life. For it 
is not only the money that } 7 ou save, it is the 
habit of prudence and of taking care of }-our re- 
sources which will communicate itself to your 
character, strengthening and broadening it in 
every way. To illustrate what I mean, here are 
two young men, John and George. They are book- 
keepers, just getting started; they earn fifteen 
dollars a week. John pays his board, takes care 
of his clothes, looks modest and neat and respect- 
able, making a contribution of one dollar a week 
to various benevolent and religious objects, and 
yet saves five dollars a week out of the fifteen. 
At the end of the year he has two hundred and 



AND HIS MONE V 



91 



sixty dollars in the bank. George has a differ- 
ent view of things. He intends after awhile, 
when he comes to have twenty-five or thirty 
dollars a week, to lay up money; but he has a 
theory that fifteen dollars a week is not any too 
much for a young man to spend on himself, and 
so he lives up to the full limit of his salary, and 
at the end of the year he has not a cent. Now, 
I mean to say that John will look at all ques- 
tions of public interest in politics, in govern- 
ment, in law and order in the city, from an 
entirely different standpoint than will George. 
John is a citizen of importance. He has a bank 
account. The question of finance interests him. 
Questions of taxation appeal to him. Political 
economy is with him a problem of personal at- 
tention. You can easily see that the saving of 
that five dollars a week has sobered and broadened 
and enlarged him, and made him a great deaf 
more of a man. What does George care for the 
silver and gold controversy ? — he would be glad 
enough to have either, and it would burn a hole 
in his pocket before night if he had it. A cer- 
tain reckless unreliability of character, developed 
by his carelessness of expenditure, makes him 
every year less of a man. 

Again, the whole question of marriage and 



■92 



MY YOUNG MAN 



home life is bound up with this problem of a 
young man's wise dealing with his money. I 
remember two young men with whom I became 
acquainted in an Eastern city several years ago. 
One of them was an Irishman who had just come 
to this country, and I had the pleasure of wel- 
coming him into my church side by side with a 
young American who had had far superior ad- 
vantages in the way of education and early train- 
ing. Now these were both good, straightfor- 
ward, honorable, religious men. Neither of 
them wasted money in drink or cards, or im- 
moral or questionable practises. They would be 
understood anywhere to be thoroughly good men. 
The American had a position where he was earn- 
ing fifteen dollars a week, with a chance for 
promotion. The Irishman went to work in a 
paint shop, to learn the business, at six dollars a 
week. He paid three dollars a week for good, 
honest board. He paid for his lodging by doing 
chores at the boarding-house. He gave five 
dollars that year for missions, paid ten cents a 
week in the envelopes for the support of the 
church, and at the end of six months, having 
saved two dollars a week, he had fifty dollars in 
the bank. The other young man had sent 
flowers to his girl, worn a great variety of colors 



AND HIS MONEY 



93 



in his neckties, discarded his clothes when they 
needed to be mended, and had managed to live 
up to every cent of his fifteen dollars a week. 

A few years have now passed by. For the last 
four years the Irishman has been running his 
own painting business, and, having thoroughly 
learned his trade, having plenty of energy and 
industry, has done well. He owns his own little 
home in the city of Boston, has it paid for, and a 
respectable bank account besides. He is an offi- 
cial member of his church, where he is a liberal 
contributor, and is a responsible, prosperous citi- 
zen of the community. The American who spent 
fifteen dollars a week was promoted to twenty 
dollars a week, and found it just as easy to spend 
that. Then he got twenty-five dollars, and that 
went in the same way. A year ago he was 
thrown out of employment, and for six months 
was compelled to live on his widowed mother, 
because he had not laid up a cent for a rainy 
day. He has never been able to get married, of 
course ; but the Irishman has a lovely wife, a 
little pink cherub of a baby, and is as happy as 
the day is long. 

I venture to say that there are hundreds of 
young men in Cleveland, having been in business 
here ten years, who have wasted enough money 



94 



MY YOUNG MAN 



in extravagance, which has brought them no 
real good in any way, to pay for a house and lot 
in the suburbs, and start them on the way toward 
a comfortable, happy home life. 

This wastefulness of money leads to another 
phase of a young man's money matters, to which 
it is very important that I should call attention. 
That is the question of debt. The Bible says 
again: " The borrower is servant to the lender," 
and nothing is truer than that. Debt is a species 
of slavery. Of course, I am not now discussing 
well-considered plans of business which may lead 
a young man into legitimate obligations; but I 
am speaking of the kind of debt that comes to a 
young man through his living beyond his means 
— debts that he owes to his landlady, his tailor, 
the laundry, and all that sort of thing. Such 
debts empty a man of his self-respect. They are 
not honest. A man has no right to live at a 
higher price than his wages warrant. The man 
who is getting a dollar a day, and deliberately 
plans to spend a dollar and twenty-five cents a 
day, is a thief. He is stealing twenty-five cents 
a day from somebody. Extravagant living, which 
ends in a young man being haunted by people he 
owes, so that he dreads going up and down the 
street for fear he will meet somebody with a bill 



AND HIS MONEY 



95 



against him, has led thousands of young men to 
commit forgery, to steal from their employer's 
till, and do all sorts of nefarious deeds. 

Another phase of this debt question is the con- 
stant habit of some young men who get behind, 
and are always on the ragged edge in their 
finances, of borrowing a dollar, or two dollars, 
or five dollars. There is no greater nuisance in 
the community, among decent people, than the 
fellow who is always running in on his own 
friends, or presuming on some friendship of his 
father or mother, or on his standing in the church, 
or the lodge, or the club, to borrow a small sum 
from somebody. I say to young men, if 3'ou 
want to keep your self-respect, if you want to 
strengthen and enlarge your manhood, starve 
rather than do that. I am not saying to the man 
out of work, " Starve rather than ask help; " I 
am talking to men who are at work. 

Employers and business people generally re- 
spect the man who lives within his means and 
who seeks to help himself. I have in mind at 
this moment a young man of very modest and 
quiet demeanor, nothing dashing or brilliant 
about him in any way; yet I heard a business man 
of large wealth say a few weeks ago, ' ' I prophesy 
for that young man a good business future, He 



9 6 MY YOUNG MAN 

is going to be a very valuable man to the 
church and the community." I inquired into 
the matter and found out the basis for this man's 
admiration. The young man in question came 
to Cleveland several years ago a poor boy. He 
worked hard at small wages at first, but saved 
his money, stuck carefully to his business, was 
regular in his church and Sunday-school attend- 
ance, and quietly made friends. His industry 
brought him promotion, and about a year ago he 
bought, for a small sum, a lot with an old house 
on it. He got board close to it, and worked 
evenings and mornings and some hours at night 
until he transformed that house, by his own 
labor, into a beautiful home. He has married a 
good, honest girl, and has the prospect of a very 
happy life. I am acquainted with other young 
men who have been here longer and have earned 
better wages, but who, without having been dis- 
sipated or immoral, have absolutely nothing to 
show for it except their extravagant habits. 

Again I want to ring the changes on the mat- 
ter of living within your income. Extravagant 
tastes in eating and drinking and clothing are 
largely matters of habit, and often matters cf 
very silly and foolish pride. Many of the great- 
est men that the world has ever seen, who have 



AND HIS MONEY 



97 



done work that will make humanity richer for- 
ever, have lived in a very modest way and re- 
tained their self-respect rather than enslave them- 
selves by debt. A friend of Agassiz and a 
fellow-member of the Harvard College faculty 
relates a story which the famous ornithologist 
was fond of telling about his visit to the great 
German naturalist, Lorenz Oken, at whose home 
he once dropped in quite unexpectedly. The 
professor received his guest with warm enthu- 
siasm. He showed his visitor the laboratory and 
the students at work, also his cabinet, and, 
lastly, his splendid library of books pertaining 
to zoological science, a collection worth some 
seven thousand dollars, and well deserving the 
glow of pride which the owner manifested as he 
expatiated on its excellence. When the dinner 
hour came, the great German said: "Monsieur 
Agassiz, to gather and keep up this library exacts 
the utmost husbandry of my pecuniary means. 
To accomplish this I allow myself no luxury 
whatever. Thrice a week our table boasts of 
meat; the other days we have only potatoes and 
salt. I very much regret that your visit has oc- 
curred on a potato day." 

Of course we laugh at that, but who does not 
respect this great naturalist more for such heroic 



g8 MY YOUNG MAN 

simplicity than if he had lived beyond his means 
and failed to do his great work on account of his 
extravagance ? 

I must not fail, however, to throw out an 
anchor in the other direction. There are some of 
you who do not need any of these exhortations 
to save money. Your temptation is in the other 
direction altogether. You have the money-getting 
nose. You could smell money under whatever 
mountain of difficulty it might be buried. You 
squeeze the eagle until it screams for pain on 
every piece of money that gets into your hand. 
You have sympathy with the old man who sat in 
the back seat at church, so as to get the interest 
on the nickel which he contributed during the 
time it took the collectors to get to him. Your 
danger is that money will get to be your god. 

Now, money is a good servant, but a brutal 
and tyrannical god. Many people make the 
great mistake of imagining that the possession of 
a large amount of money will insure their happi- 
ness and peace. It is not so. My observation 
leads me to believe that there is as much unhap- 
piness, as much heart-breaking misery, among 
very rich people as there is among very poor peo- 
ple, and that there is less happiness among either 
the very poor or the very rich than among those 



AND HIS MONEY 



99 



who have neither poverty nor riches, but who 
seek money that they may use it to build up 
a larger and better manhood and womanhood. 
For the benefit of those who believe that if they 
could get rich they would surely be happy, I want 
to recall a very old story. 

There was a king whose name was Dionysius. 
He was so unjust and cruel that he won for him- 
self the name of tyrant. He knew that almost 
everybody hated him, and so he was always in 
dread lest somebody should take his life. 

But he was very rich, and he lived in a fine 
palace where there were many beautiful and 
costly things; and he was waited on by a host of 
servants who were always ready to do his bidding. 

One day a friend of his, whose name was 
Damocles, said to him : " How happy you must 
be ! You have everything that any man could 
wish." 

' ' Perhaps you would like to change places 
with me," said the tyrant. 

" No, not that, O king! " said Damocles; "but 
T think that if I could only have your riches and 
your pleasures for one day, I should not want 
any greater happiness. ' ' 

' ' Very well, ' ' said the tyrant, ' ' you shall have 
them." 



IO o MY YOUNG MAN 

And so, the next day, Damocles was led into 
the palace, and all the servants were bidden to 
treat him as their master. He sat down at a 
table in the banquet hall, and rich foods were 
placed before him. Nothing was wanting that 
could give him pleasure. There were costly 
wines, beautiful flowers, rare perfumes, and 
delightful music. He rested himself among soft 
cushions, and for a moment felt that he was the 
happiest man in all the world. 

Then he chanced to raise his eyes toward the 
ceiling. What was it that was dangling above 
him, with its point almost touching his head ? 

It was a sharp sword, and it was hung only by 
a single horse-hair. What if the hair should 
break ? There was danger every moment that it 
would do so. 

The smile faded from the lips of Damocles. 
His face became ashy pale. His hands trembled. 
He wanted no more food ; he could drink no 
more wine ; he took no more delight in music. 
He longed to be out of the palace and away, he 
cared not where. 

' l What is the matter ? ' ' said the tyrant. 

' ' That sword ! That sword ! ' ' cried Damocles. 
He was so frightened that he dared not move. 

' ' Yes, ' ' said Dionysius, ' ' I know there is a 



AND HIS MONEY IO l 

sword above your head, and that it may fall at 
any moment. But why should that trouble you ? 
I have a sword over my head all the time. I am 
every moment in dread lest something may cause 
me to lose my life. ' ' 

1 ' I*et me go, " said Damocles. ' ' I now see that 
I was mistaken, and that the rich and powerful 
are not so happy as they seem. L,et me go back 
to my old home in the little cottage among the 
mountains." 

And so long as he lived Damocles never again 
wanted to be rich, or to change places, even for a 
moment, with the king. 

Money is a servant; use it to build up your 
manhood. Money is power; use it to lift up the 
weak, to bring comfort to those in distress, to 
bless those whom it is in your power to help. 
Keep ever in mind that you are in the world to 
develop manhood, and that money is to be used 
so as to make you a nobler, broader, more 
generous, and brotherly man. 

No young man can wisely wait until he is rich 
before he cultivates habits of generosity. If you 
only earn six dollars a week, see that at least a 
fragment of it goes to help somebody else. 
Increase your generosity and your support of 
religion and philanthropy as your income in- 



IQ 2 MY YOUNG MAN 

creases, and then, if in time God shall entrust you 
with great wealth, you will be one of the rich 
men who is greater than his money, and whose 
life will bless the world and not curse it. Many 
men say and imagine that if they had a million 
they would do great good with it. But the man 
who is selfish, and gives no part of his fifteen 
dollars a week to do good, would do the same 
thing if he had a million. Deal with your small 
stewardship in such a manner that if every other 
man used his money as you use yours, this earth 
would be the home of a happy brotherhood. 



AS A CITIZEN 



103 



IX 

MY YOUNG MAN AS A CITIZEN 

The question of individual citizenship is more 
important in the United States than in any other 
country of the world. There are some countries 
where certain families have assumed the right 
and the duty of attending to all matters of gov- 
ernment. Such traditions back them up that the 
people, with more or less good will, agree to that 
state of things, and the responsibilities of gov- 
ernment rest almost entirely on these reigning 
families. There are other countries where the 
government is divided, as in England, between 
a reigning royal family, a house of lords, also 
hereditary, and the representatives of the people 
gathered in the house of commons. The gov- 
ernment of the United States is entirely different. 
We have neither czar nor sultan to do all the 
governing for us, nor have we king or queen or 
house of lords to divide with us the responsibil- 
ities of the orderly conduct of human affairs 
within the limits of the national territory. In 
the memorable words of Iyincoln, recast from 
words often spoken before, we are "a govern- 



104 M Y YOUNG MAN 

ment of the people, for the people, and by the 
people." If the government is bad, it is the 
people's fault ; if the government is good, the 
people deserve the credit for it. 

A little reflection will convince any one that in 
such a country as ours the individual citizen is a 
far more important factor than he is in the land 
of the sultan or the czar. If you have a good 
czar you may have comparatively good govern- 
ment in Russia, tho the people be ignorant, ill- 
housed, ill-fed, and utterly indifferent to the 
problems of government. The character of the 
individual citizen — if an inhabitant of Russia can 
be called a citizen — is of comparatively little 
account when contrasted with citizenship in the 
United States. Here it is the individual that 
counts, and it can never be a matter of small 
interest that any single citizen fails to do his 
duty. It is easy to conceive of a condition of 
things in which one man — a man unknown to 
fame and of the commonest character and sur- 
roundings — by failure to do his duty might 
change the whole administration of the United 
States, or through fulfilling his obligations as a 
citizen might work uncounted good to all the 
millions of his fellows. In short, when we threw 
overboard that cargo of tea in Boston harbor, a 



AS A CITIZEN 



I05 



good many years ago, we served notice on all the 
royal families of Europe that we intended to 
govern ourselves, and whether we like it or not, 
the obligation to do so is upon us. Instead of 
one reigning family, there are about fifteen mil- 
lion reigning families in the United States, with- 
out taking into consideration Hawaii, Puerto 
Rico, the Philippines, and other islands of the sea. 

During the last summer, while the Spanish- 
war was raging, and Americans abroad were 
thinking tenderly of home and the flag, a patri- 
otic American woman wore at her throat a pin 
bearing a representation of the Stars and Stripes. 
She was introduced to a woman on the Conti- 
nent, whose attention was attracted to the pin 
and its beautiful design, and she inquired of the 
American, "Is that the badge of some secret 
society to which you belong ? ' ' The American 
proudly tossed her pretty head as she replied, 
"Yes, there are seventy millions of us." And 
there are about that many in our reigning family, 
not counting the dwellers in the later isles. 

I think I have made it clear as a base work for 
our talk that the individual citizen has no right 
to be indifferent to the problems of citizenship. 
If this is true, then it is the duty, evidently, of 
every young man to look well to his own educa- 



Io6 MY YOUNG MAN 

tion in citizenship. A man ought to count him- 
self ignorant and uneducated who does not have on 
his tongue's end a clear analysis of all the general 
conditions of the government under which he lives. 

I remember an examination which I once wit- 
nessed in a Western town, where a purse-proud 
young fellow, a vigorous, live, business man, 
came up for examination for admission to the 
bar. One of the questions that was put to him 
was: " Do all the States have the same number 
of United States senators ? " 

He scratched his head for a minute and said, 
''No." 

Asked to give an illustration, he replied that 
Rhode Island, being a little State, only had two; 
while Texas, being a very large State, had, he 
thought, ten, though he was not very sure about it. 

Now, this man was a successful business man, 
and, on the books he had studied, passed a very 
good examination, and has made a successful 
lawyer. But on the general questions of govern- 
ment, and on the important problems of citizen- 
ship, he was totally ignorant. 

I have been astonished in Cleveland, and in 
cities farther east, to notice what vague and 
indefinite ideas about government the average 
young man has. I urge upon young men, as a 



AS A CITIZEN 



107 



most solemn duty, that they read books on polit- 
ical economy and on the functions of government, 
those comparing different forms of government, 
and especially those discussing questions of mu- 
nicipal government. Study the functions of the 
State legislature and State officers, the relations 
between the States and the Federal Government, 
the powers of the president and his advisers, the 
relation of political parties to government, the 
formation and history of political parties, and the 
history of reforms in government. An hour a 
day devoted to such subjects for the next year 
would make any young man a bright, wide- 
awake, well-informed citizen, capable of thinking 
about and discussing the public issues of the day 
with intelligence, and able to find his way through 
the mists and haze of politics to sensible decisions. 
The country suffers terribly in its government 
because a great many of the best class of citizens, 
so far as reliability and character are concerned, 
fail to take that interest in politics, and in the 
conduct of the government, which they should. 
When good people, whose only interest in polit- 
ical life would be to subserve the public good, 
stay out of politics, the administration of public 
affairs naturally falls into the hands of classes of 
citizens who have only greedy personal ends to 



Io8 MY YOUNG MAN 

serve, and who prey upon the public treasury. 
The government of many of our large cities has 
fallen into the hands of corrupt, conscienceless 
politicians entirely through the failure of the 
most intelligent and personally moral citizens of 
the community to give heed to their civic duties. 
This deplorable condition of things is illustrated 
with graphic force by an old Bible parable which 
you may find in the book of Judges. It was 
related by a man named Jotham at a time when a 
corrupt scoundrel by the name of Abimelech had 
bribed the mob and come into power through the 
timidity of the best people of the country. Jo- 
tham, reasoning about it, said that there was a 
time when the trees went forth to anoint a king 
over them; and they said unto the olive-tree, 
Reign thou over us. But the olive-tree said unto 
them, Should I leave my fatness, wherewith by 
me they honor God and man, and go to be pro- 
moted over the trees ? And the trees said to the 
fig-tree, Come thou, and reign over us. But the 
fig-tree said unto them, Should I forsake my 
sweetness, and my good fruit, and go to be pro- 
moted over the trees ? Then said the trees unto 
the vine, Come thou, and reign over us. And the 
vine said unto them, Should I leave my grape, 
which cheereth God and man, and go to be pro- 



AS A CITIZEN 



109 



moted over the trees? Then said all the trees 
unto the bramble, Come thou, and reign over us. 
And the bramble said unto the trees, If in truth 
ye anoint me king over you, then come and put 
your trust in my shadow; and if not, let fire 
come out of the bramble, and devour the cedars 
of Lebanon. 

Is not that a fair pidlure of what is happening 
in many sections of our country to-day ? 

The very rich people, who may be compared to 
the olive, are busy making money and storing up 
their great fortunes, and ' they say, ' ' We have 
not time to enter into politics and bear personally 
the burdens of government." And so, largely, 
they avoid the jury box and other like positions 
which lie at the very foundations of a pure gov- 
ernment; they stay away from the primaries and 
caucuses of political parties, and often do not 
even register or cast a ballot. 

The highly educated classes, the men from the 
colleges, and those in literature and art, may be 
compared to the fig-tree. They love their leisure; 
they love cultivated associations; they do not 
enjoy the press and the hubbub of the crowd. 
And they feel that they can not leave all these 
sweet things and mix in the strife of party poli 
tics, or bear the unpleasant burdens of civil gov- 



HO MY YOUNG MAN 

ernment. So a great many of them take no more 
interest in the practical control of public affairs 
than a Chinese coolie in Canton, or a wandering 
bedouin of the desert. 

Then there is the larger class, the great army 
of bread-winners, the vast middle class of pro- 
ducers, who may be compared to the vine. The}^ 
say, " We are too busy with our crops and our 
machinery to worry ourselves with all the tricks 
and schemes of politics." And so multiplied 
thousands of them shirk their duty, and are a 
silent, unheard force in the governmental life of 
the country. 

But there is one class that never misses a 
chance for political influence and power. That 
is the great vulture class of society — the men who 
sell liquor, the men who run gambling hells, the 
men who are interested in brothels and* low dives 
of every sort ; contractors who get rich by plun- 
dering the public treasury through the connivance 
of scoundrels in office ; thugs and prize-fighters, 
and all the shady cellar- world of municipal life. 
All these may be compared to the bramble bush 
with its contemptible appearance and its poison- 
ous thorns. Now, when the rich, and the cul- 
tured, and the great middle class of producers 
shirk politics, this other crowd comes into control. 



AS A CITIZEN m 

And whenever that is the case, the people suffer 
and the scoundrels get fat. It is made easy for 
men to do wrong and hard for them to do right. 
The people who plunder the unwary and the 
weak are protected, and the Scripture is illus- 
trated which says, c ' When the wicked bear rule 
the people mourn." 

Your interest in the duties of citizenship will 
increase with the exercise of your talents in that 
direction. If a man puts himself heartily into 
anything, and invests. a good deal in it, it is but 
natural for him to give a good deal more atten- 
tion to the capital he has already placed. 

An Irishman who was walking over a plank 
sidewalk while counting some money, accident- 
ally dropped a dime, which rolled through a crack 
between two of the boards. He was much put 
out by his loss, trifling tho it was, and continued* 
on his way, muttering his discontent. The next 
morning a friend, while walking by the spot, dis- 
covered the Irishman deliberately dropping a 
dollar down the same crack through which 
he had lost his dime. Of course, the friend 
was astonished at what he saw, and desiring 
to learn why Pat should deliberately, to all 
appearances, throw away money, he inquired his 
reasons. 



II2 MY YOUNG MAN 

" It was this way, ' ' said Pat. "It's yesterday 
I was passin' this way, when I lost a dime down 
that hole. Now, I reasoned that it wasn't worth 
me while to pnll up that sidewalk for a dime, but 
last night a scheme struck me, and I am droppin' 
down the dollar to make it worth me while." 

Vaguely within himself Pat was feeling the 
working of a great principle. If you will throw 
your whole self with enthusiasm and devotion into 
your duties as a citizen, you will soon feel you 
have so much at stake, you have given so many 
hostages to good government, that it is worth 
your while to go on as a wide-awake, devoted 
member of the body politic. It will increase 
your manliness, broaden your horizon, and de- 
velop you into a nobler and stronger personality 
in every way. The country suffers for the lack 
of full-orbed men. Brothers, let us determine to 
be that kind of men. Then will the cry of the 
poet be answered: 

" Give us men! 

Men from every rank, 

Fresh and free and frank, 
Men of thought and reading, 
Men of light and leading, 
Men of loyal breeding, 
Nation's welfare speeding; 



AS A CITIZEN II3 

Men of ft.ith and not of faction, 
Men of lofty aim in action; 
Give us men — I say again, 
Give us men! 



" Give us men! 

Strong and stalwart ones! 
Men whom highest hope inspires, 
Men whom purest honor fires, 
Men who trample self beneath them, 
Men who make their country wreathe them 

As her noble sons, 

Worthy of their sires! 
Men who never shame their mothers, 
Men who never fail their brothers, 
True, however false are others; 

Give us men — I say again 
Give us men! 

" Give us men! 
Men who, when the tempest gathers 
Grasp the standard of their fathers 

In the thickest fight; 
Men who strike for homes and altar 
(Let the coward cringe and falter); 

God defend the right! 
True as truth, tho lorn and lonely, 
Tender — as the brave are only; 
Men who tread where saints have trod. 
Men for country — right — and God; 

Give us men — I say again, again, 
Give us men! " 



ii4 



MY YOUNG MAN 



X 

MY YOUNG MAN HIMSELF 

" Toil-worn I stood and said, 
' O Lord, my feet have bled, 
My hands are sore, 
I weep my efforts, vainly poor. 
With fainting heart I pray of Thee, 
Give some brave other, work designed for me.' 
But my Lord answer made, ' O child of mine, 
I have looked through space, and searched through 

time, 
There is none can do the work called thine.' 

" Soul sick I knelt and cried, 
' Let me forever hide 
My little soul 

From sight of Him who made the whole, 
My one small spirit in the vast, 

Vast throngs of like mean myriads, present, past!' 
But my Lord answer made, ' O child of mine, 
I have looked through space, and searched through 

time, 
But I find no soul is like to thine. 1" 

Every human soul is a separate study of Al- 
mighty God. We may mar His work, or we 
may develop it by His help into a more splendid 



HIMSELF II5 

creation; out on every one of us He has bestowed 
individual gifts that are peculiarly our own. 
This thought gives the color of romance to every 
life. I am not simply a cog in awheel, made 
like a million other cogs; I am not simply a 
wheel in a watch } so like a million other wheels 
that I may not be distinguished save by my num- 
ber. I am the son of God, created in His image, 
with a spark of His divine genius in my mind 
and heart. 

A man is to be judged by this quality of self- 
hood and what he does with it. Phillips Brooks 
once said, l ' Get the pattern of your life from 
God, and then go about your work and be your- 
self." No greater mistake can be made than a 
failure to recognize this unique personality, dif- 
ferent in so many ways from any other person- 
ality in the world. To grow large one must 
recognize this individuality, must trust it, must 
believe in it as God's gift, and dare to let it have 
a chance to expand. Emerson tells about a soul 
that was lost by mimicking a soul. And there 
are no doubt a large number of men who lose 
their chance of being great factors in the world, 
and of largely contributing to the progress of 
civilization and the development of mankind, 
because instead of giving their own souls a 



n6 MY YOUNG MAN 

chance to grow and enlarge, they hold them- 
selves to simply mimicking other souls. Rever- 
ently, but conscientiously, dare to be yourself. 

I suppose it is impossible for us to fully appre- 
ciate how many people are despoiled of their 
greatest possibilities by the loss of their individ- 
uality. It is only now and then that there is a 
man or a woman strong enough to resist the 
fetters which conventionalism would put on 
them. This is clearly brought out in an amusing 
story which is related in Mr. Spurgeon's autobi- 
ography: When Spurgeon was quite a young 
man, the mayor of the town where he was preach- 
ing tried to correct his 3^outhful mistakes and 
eccentricities, and meeting him one day in the 
street, asked him if he had really told his con- 
gregation that if a thief got into heaven he would 
begin picking the angels' pockets. 

"Yes, sir," replied Mr. Spurgeon, "I told 
them that if it were possible for an ungodly man 
to go to heaven without having his nature 
changed, he would be none the better for being 
there; and then, by way of illustration, I said 
that were a thief to get in among the glorified 
he would remain a thief still, and would go 
around the place picking the angels' pockets. ' ' 

"But, my dear young friend," asked the 



HIMSELF TI j 

mayor, very seriously, "don't you know that 
the angels haven't any pockets? " 

' ' No, sir, " replied young Spurgeon, with equal 
gravity; " I did not know that, but I am glad to 
be assured of the fact from a gentleman who does 
know. I will take care to put it all right the 
first opportunity I get. ' ' 

The next Monday morning he walked into the 
mayor's place of business and said to him, "I 
set that matter right yesterday, sir." 

"What matter?" 

"Why, about the angels' pockets ! " 

1 ' What did you say ? ' ' asked the city ofiicial in a 
tone almost of despair at what he might hear next. 

"Oh, sir, I just told the people I was sorry to 
say that I had made a mistake the last time I 
preached to them; but that I had met a gentle- 
man — the mayor of Cambridge — who had assured 
me that the angels had no pockets, so I must 
correct what I had said, as I did not want any- 
body to go away with a false notion about 
heaven. I would, therefore, say that if a thief 
got among the angels without having his nature 
changed, he would try to steal the feathers out of 
their wings ! ' ' 

1 ' Surely, you did not say that ? ' ' said the 
mayor. 



H8 MY YOUNG MAN 

" I did, tho," Spurgeon replied. 

"Then," he exclaimed, "I will never try to 
set you right again ! " — which was exactly what 
the brilliant young preacher wanted him to say. 

Spurgeon' s greatest power — like that of every 
other great forceful character — was his courage 
to give free play to the natural ability which had 
been given him. 

Men often make the blunder of imagining that 
they can really be one kind of a man, and make 
the world believe that the}' are altogether another 
kind of person. But that will never work very 
long at a time. The thin veneering will soon be 
rubbed through, and the real character will show 
for what it is. A bad man may for a time make 
people believe that he is a good man; but if the 
personality is really bad, it will soon stamp its 
value on his entire self. Robert Nourse, the lec- 
turer, says that Hyde is Doctor Jekyl with his 
hide off, and, tho he may masquerade as Jekyl on 
various occasions, he will finally come to be known 
for what he is, the villainous Hyde. 

Dr. Henry W. Bellows used to relate how a 
sculptor collected a bad debt by his sharp wit. 
Dr. Bellows was in Powers' studio, and noticed 
a certain shelf in his outer room containing a few 
busts over which the word ' ' Delinquents ' ' was 



HIMSELF lX g 

chalked. This was the pillory into which Mr. 
Powers put those who, being able to pay, refused 
to settle their accounts. Mr. Powers said he 
caught the idea from a story related to him of a 
certain artist long ago who, having made a faith- 
ful bust of a sitter, found his work declined on 
account of its ugliness, the sub j eel; refusing to 
believe it was a good likeness. 

"Very well," said the artist, "you deny the 
likeness, and refuse to take the bust, and I accept 
the excuse. ' ' 

He accordingly set up the bust in his studio, 
surrounded by a small cardboard prison, gloomily 
painted over, on which was inscribed, "For 
debt." The likeness was so unmistakable that 
everybody in town recognized it and flocked to 
the artist's studio to enjoy his ingenious revenge. 
Soon the sub j eel came, passionately complaining 
of the ridicule to which he had been subjected. 

" You, sir? " said the sculptor. " Who knows 
this ugly bust to be yours ? There is no name 
upon it, and you have utterly denied its resem- 
blance. It is my work, and I have a right to do 
as I will with it." 

' ' Oh ! but I will pay you the price and take it 
away." 

' ' But it has become so valuable to me by at- 



X2o MY YOUNG MAN 

tracting the public that I can not part with it for 
less than twice my original price. ' ' 

" Well, I will take it at that price." And so 
the sculptor's debtor got himself out of prison. 

If a man gives his soul over to be molded by 
ugly passions, to be the reveling ground of evil 
lusts, he may be sure that this ugly and repulsive 
selthood will make itself felt and known through 
any cultured and polished mask that may be 
drawn on over it. In the long run, whether 
demon or angel, a man will stand for his true 
worth. It is the self that counts. 

Nothing which affects the moral quality of his 
personality can be of small moment to a man. 
His friends, his books and papers, therefore, 
become of the very first importance. No man on 
earth can keep his real self clean and wholesome 
and noble, if he is choosing his friendships among 
people who are impure, or reading books and 
papers that suggest unwholesome images to his 
mind. Especially do I wish to lay emphasis on 
the importance of your reading. Benjamin 
Franklin declares that a little volume of ' ' Essays 
To Dp Good," by Cotton Mather, read when he 
was a boy, influenced the whole course of his 
after life ; and that whatever usefulness had 
been developed in him as a citizen, came from that 



HIMSELF 



121 



little book. On the other hand, John Angell 
James said that when he was at school a boy 
loaned him an impure book. He only read it for 
a few minutes, but even during that short time 
poison flowed fatally into his soul and became to 
him a source of bitterness and anguish for all his 
after years. The thoughts, images, and pictures 
thus glanced at haunted him all through life like 
foul specters. It was a wise man who, three 
thousand years ago, questioned : ' ' Can a man 
take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be 
burned ? Or can one go upon hot coals, and his 
feet not be scorched ? ' ' 

It is a wholesome thing for a young man to 
feel, what is undoubtedly the truth, that his 
future depends not on somebody to open the way 
for him and back him up and help him to success, 
but more than anything else it depends upon 
what he is going to be himself. Nothing can 
stand in the way of a man who will throw the 
concentrated force of a genuine man's steady 
perseverance and clean-hearted earnestness into 
the battle. 

A well-to-do j udge once gave his son a thou- 
sand dollars and told him to go to college and 
graduate. The son returned at the end of the 
first year. His money was all gone, and he had 



122 MY YOUNG MAN 

contracted several extravagant habits. At the 
close of the vacation the judge said, "Well, 
William, are you going to college this year? " 

" I have no money, father." 

' ' But I gave you a thousand dollars to gradu- 
ate on. ' ' 

' ' It is all gone, father. ' ' 

" Very well, my son; it is all I could give you; 
you can't sta3 r here; you must now pay your own 
way in the world. ' ' 

A new light broke upon the vision of the } T oung 
man. He had real mettle in him, and he gath- 
ered himself together to face the music. He 
again left home, worked his way through college, 
graduated at the head of his class, studied law, 
was made governor of the State of New York, 
then secretary of state for the United States, 
and became honored by all the world as William 
H. Seward. But it was the man himself who 
had to do the work. 

Judge Day told a friend in Canton, Ohio, that 
in the White House, at the time the peace pro- 
tocol between the United States and Spain was 
being signed, he had a very strong contrasting 
picture in his mind. He says that while Presi- 
dent McKinle3 r and M. Cambon, the French 
ambassador, were speaking after putting their 



HIMSELF I2 3 

signatures to the historic paper, his mind went 
back thirty years to the time he first met Presi- 
dent McKinley. Both had recently come to 
Canton, Ohio, to practise law, and were employed 
on opposite sides of a case that involved less than 
twenty dollars. It was tried before a country 
justice of the peace in a blacksmith-shop in an 
out-of-the-way part of the county, and to save 
expenses the opposing counsel drove there in the 
same vehicle. Thirty years later they stood 
together as the chief figures in the diplomatic 
negotiations that closed a war, one as president, 
and the other as secretary of state. 

listen to me, young man ! It is not a rich 
father, nor a benevolent uncle, nor a kind grand- 
mother, nor a soft berth, nor any set of circum- 
stances that you need to coddle you into - success 
and victory. What you need is manhood under 
your own hat, walking in your shoes, and throb- 
bing under your vest. The only man that can 
ever harm or help you much is the man who 
bears' your name, and looks out through your 
eyes when you face the mirror. 



Books by <$ <$ 

DR. LOUIS ALBERT BANKS. 

Christ and His Friends* 

A Collection of Revival Sermons, Simple and Direct, and Wholly 
Devoid of Oratorical Artifice, but Rich in Natural Eloquence, and 
Burning with Spiritual Fervor. The author has strengthened 
and enlivened them with many illustrations and anecdotes. 
12mo, Cloth, Gilt Top, Rough Edges. Price, $1.50; post-free. 

National Presbyterian, Indianapolis: " One of the most marked revivals 
attended their delivery, resulting in hundreds of conversions. Free from extrav- 
agance and fantasticism, in good taste, dwelling upon the essentials of religious 
faith, their power has not been lost in transference to the printed page." 

New York Observer: " These sermons are mainly hortatory . . . always 
aiming at conviction or conversion. They abound in fresh and forcible illus- 
trations. . . . They furnish a fine specimen of the best way to reach the popular 
ear, and may be commended as putting the claims of the Gospel upon men's at- 
tention in a very direct and striking manner. No time is wasted in rhetorical 
ornament, but every stroke tells upon the main point." 

The Fisherman and His Friends. 

A Companion Volume to " Christ and His Friends," consisting of 
Thirty-one Stirring Revival Discourses, full of Stimulus and Sug- 
gestion for Ministers, Bible class Teachers, and all Christian 
Workers and Others who Desire to become Proficient in the 
Supreme Capacity of Winning Souls to Christ. They furnish a 
rich store of fresh spiritual inspiration, their subjects being strong, 
stimulating, and novel in treatment, without being sensational or 
elaborate. They were originally preached by the author in a 
successful series of revival meetings, which resulted in many 
conversions. 12mo, Cloth, Gilt Top. Price, $1.50; post-free. 

Bishop John F. Hurst: "It is a most valuable addition to our devotional 
literature." 

New York Independent : " There is no more distinguished example of the 
modern people's preacher in the American pulpit to-day than Dr. Banks. This 
volume fairly thrills and rocks with the force injected into its utterance.' 1 '' 



BOOKS BY DR. LOUIS ALBERT BANKS — Continued. 

Paul and His Friends* 

A companion volume to "Christ and His Friends," and "The 
Fisherman and His Friends," being s imil arly bound and ar- 
ranged The book contains thirty-one stirring revival sermons 
delivered in a special series of revival services at the First M. E. 
Church, Cleveland. 12mo, Cloth, Gilt Top, Rough Edges. 
Price, 81.50. 

The Christian Gentleman, 

A volume of original and practical addresses to young men. The 
addresses were originally delivered to large and enthusiastic au- 
diences of men, in Cleveland, at the Young Men's Christian As- 
sociation Hall. 12mo, Buckram. Price, 75 cents. 

Hero Tales from Sacred Story, 

The Romantic Stories of Bible Characters Retold in Graphic 
Style, with Modern Parallels and Striking Applications. Richly 
Illustrated with 19 Full-page, Half-tone Hlustrations from Fa- 
mous Paintings. 12mo, Cloth, Gilt Top, Cover Design by George 
"Wharton Edwards. Price, $1.50. 

Christian Work, Xew York: " One can not imagine a better book to put 
into the hands of a young man or young woman than this." 

The Saloon-Keeper's Ledger* 

The Business and Financial Side of the Drink Question. Among 
the items treated are: The Saloon Debtor to Disease, Private and 
Social Immorality, Ruined Homes, Lawlessness and Crime, and 
Political Corruption. 12mo, Cloth. Price, 75 cents. 

The Christian Herald, Detroit: " This is one of the most notable contri- 
butions to temperance literature of recent years. The discourses are the master- 
pieces of an expert, abounding in apt illustrations and invincible logic, sparkling 
with anecdote, and scintillating with unanswerable facts." 

Sermon Stories for Boys and Girls* 

Short Stories of great interest, with which are interwoven les- 
sons of practical helpfulness for young minds. The stories have 
been previously told in the author's congregation, where their potency 
and attractiveness have become surprisingly manifest. The book has 
a special value for the Sunday-school, the nursery, the pastor's study, 
and the school-room. 12mo, Cloth, Artistic Cover Design, Illus- 
trated. Price, $1,00, 



BOOKS BY DR. LOUIS ALBERT BANKS — Continued. 

Seven Times Around Jericho* 

Seven Strong and Stirring Temperance Discourses, in which Deep 
Enthusiasm is Combined with Rational Reasoning — A Refreshing 
Change from the Conventional Temperance Arguments. Pathetic 
incidents and stories are made to carry most convincingly their 
vital significance to the subjects discussed. They treat in broad 
manner various features of the question. 12mo, Handsomely 
Bound in Polished Buckram. Price, 75 cents. 

Herald and Presbyter, Cincinnati : " The book is 'sure to be a power for 
good. The discourses have the true ring." 

Jersey City News : " Such able discourses as these of Dr. Banks will won- 
derfully help the great work of educating and arousing the people to their duty." 

Revival Quiver* 

A Pastor's Record of Four Revival Campaigns. 12mo, Cloth, 

$1.50. 

This book is, in some sense, a record of personal experiences in revival 
work. It begins with "Planning for a Revival," followed by "Methods in 
Revival Work." This is followed by brief outlines of some hundred or more 
sermons. They have points to them, and one can readily see that they were 
adapted to the purpose designed. The volume closes with "A Scheme of City 
Evangelization." It seems to us a valuable book, adapted to the wants of many 
a preacher and pastor. 

White Slaves ; or, The Oppression of the Worthy Poor. 

Fifty Illustrations. 12mo, Cloth, $1.50. 

The Rev. Dr. Banks has made a personal and searching investigation into 
the homes of the poorer classes, and in the " White Slaves " the results are 
given. The work is illustrated from photographs taken by the author- and the 
story told by pen and camera is startling. It should be borne in mind that the 
author's visits were made to the homes of the worthy poor, who are willing to 
work hard for subsistence, and not to the homes of the criminal and vicious. 

The Christ Dream* 

12mo, Cloth, $1.20. 

A series of twenty-four sermons in which illustrations of the Christ ideal 
are thrown upon the canvas, showing here and there individuals who have risen 
above the selfish, and measure up to the Christ dream. In tone it is optimistic, 
and sees the bright side of life. 

Common Folks' Religion. 

A Volume of Sermons. 12mo, Cloth, $1.50. 

Boston Journal : " Dr. Banks presents Christ to the ' common people,' 
and preaches to every-day folk the glorious every-day truths of the Scripture. 
The sermons are original, terse, and timely, full of reference to current topics, 
and have that earnest quality which is particularly needed to move the people 
for whom they were spoken," 



BOOKS BY DR. LOUIS ALBERT BANKS — Continued. 

The People's Christ* 

A Volume of Sermons and Other Addresses and Papers. 12mo, 
Cloth, $1.25. 

New 'York Observer : " These sermons are excellent specimens of dis- 
courses adapted to reach the masses. Their manner of presenting Christian 
truth is striking. They abound in all kinds of illustration, and are distinguisbi'l 
by a bright, cheerful tone and style, which admirably fit them for making per- 
manent impression." 

Heavenly Trade-Winds* 

A Volume of Sermons. 12mo, Cloth, $1.25. 

From author's preface: "The sermons included in this volume have all 
been delivered in the regular course of my ministry in the Hanson-Place 
Methodist Episcopal Church, Brooklyn. They have been blessed of God in 
confronting the weary, giving courage to the faint, arousing the indifferent, and 
awakening the sinful." 

The Honeycombs of Life. 

A Volume of Sermons. 12mo, Cloth, $1.50. 

Most of the discourses are spiritual honeycombs, means of refreshment and 
Ulumination by the way. "The Soul's Eesources," "Cure for Anxiety," "At 
the Beautiful Gate," "The Pilgrimage of Faith," and " Wells in tbe Valley of 
Baca," are among his themes. The volume is well laden with evangelical truth, 
and breathes a holy inspiration. This volume also includes Dr. Banks's 
Memorial tribute to Lucy Stone and his powerful sermon in regard to the Chinese 
in America, entitled " Our Brother in Yellow." 



Immortal Hymns and Their Story. 

The Narrative of the Conception and Striking Experiences of 
Blessing Attending the Use of some of the World's Greatest 
Hymns. With 21 Portraits and 25 full-page half-tone illustra- 
tions by Norval Jordan. 8vo, Cloth, G-ilt Top, $3.00. 



An Oregon Boyhood* 

The story of Dr. Banks's boyhood in Oregon in the pioneer days, 
including innumerable dramatic, romantic, and exciting experi- 
ences of frontier life. 12mo, Cloth. Tastefully bound and 
printed. Illustrated. Price $1.25. 

FINK & WAGNALLS CO., Publishers, 30 Lafayette PI., NEW YORK. 



